"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 7 Nov 2002 16:38:18 -0600, "Gordon Couger"
wrote:


"Torsten Brinch" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 7 Nov 2002 03:48:45 -0600, "Gordon Couger"
wrote:

Torsten,

Has a trend devolved yet that would indicate that a peak is nearing
..

You are making reference to some thought imagine of a 'normal'
epidemic curve, I think, more or less bell-shaped with a tail. I don't
think our knowledge of the disease gives us basis for assuming such a
model.

Anyhow, if it is assumed, there is no clear indication in data where
we are in this assumed progressive development in relation to a peak.
Said otherwise, one can find support in data for us being as well
past, on, or nearing a peak. Past-peakers might note the decreasing
trend in vCJD deaths since about autumn 2000; on-peakers and
nearing-peakers, that the current incidence does not stand out
as particularly high or particularly low compared to the incidence
the previous 3-4 years.

It wouldn't be bell shaped. I am exactly sure what the curve of an
emerging
diseases looks like it would be different for each one snip

Yes,exactly and the shape is not known a priori unless one has a
reasoned model -- which in this case we most certainly do not have.

As you probably know, some think it is caused by the chronic effect of
exposure to toxic proteins from BSE affected cows. Quite a bit like
that Minamata disease in Japan caused by exposure to methylmercury,
just slower. But that can't be right, since the US EPA has determined
in connection with their approvals of genetically modified crops, that
when proteins are toxic they act by acute toxicity mechanisms and in
very small doses.

If there were to be toxic protein in the brains of BSE cows,
there should be at least sproadic reports of acute cases of dementia
in humans caused by the sunday dinner, and there should be huge
masses of supporting animal evidence for the acute toxic effects of
BSE brain muck. But quite on the contrary, there is a vast body of
evidence proving beyond any doubt, that experimental animals tolerate
large acute doses of BSE muck with no ill effect. IOW, we do not have
a clue what vCJD is caused by, and to be worse very many people think
it is caused by something that the EPA has determined that it cannot
be caused by.

The fantasicly intestisting thing about the TSE diseses is they are an
entirely new class of diseases. The incubation peroiod are so slow and the
method of transmision counter to what we think we know about he digestion of
protiens it will be a long time getting the research done. When you look at
the economic return on investment of reserch in TSE's the return is very
poor. It is simple not worth the opertunity cost spent on it when there are
more important things to spend money on.

Had the press not sensationalized it Mad Cow would be a foot note in
journals. Getting vCJD appears to be two to 3 times as likely as being
killed by lighiningin the UK. I must confess I would prefer lightineing. I
can't find the number on cattle killed by ligthing but the Mad Cow numers
range from 300,000 to 3,000,000. I the lower number is the ones diagnosed
and ones reasonable expected to have died from BSE and I know that the UK
has much better reporting than the US but I am sure that in the early part
of the out break it was low and probalbly to some extent all throug the out
break.

How every even if you take the high figure it was not an economicly
disatorus disease until the panic took over reducing the UK beef industry to
a side line of the dairy business.

I have blamed the greens for the fools debate on food safety but my side
shares the blame in not coming out a standing up in the harsh public light
and standing their ground. We have a 89 year old Noble prize winner we
shamed in to reentering the fray funded a few institutes to put out our
propaganda based on better science than the other side but still it is plain
that their job is to run interference for the scientist that should be
standing up and explaining to people why what they do is needed and safe but
most still hide in their holes (offices) afraid controversy will hurt their
funding. They need the balls to come out and tell their side of the story
and get pie in the face and earn the respect of the people because a few
voice in the wilderness will not over come the well oiled green machine.

No government is funding ag or another kind or research at the same rate
they were 20 years ago. So it is either commercial or very damn little when
it comes to research. A lot of the US research in the USDA and USGS is
being done by retired civil servants that have invested their lives in those
projects and when no one was there to take them up they just kept on working
with out pay. People don't go into science for money if they have all their
marbles. A few make it big but my son's starting salary fresh out of college
was higher than some full professors salary that taught him.

Torsten, we have been at this discussion a very long time. What I want for
the future is not much different than what you want. I want a world that is
capable of feeding it's self with each country being self sustaining as
possible using methods that at worst leave the ground as good as it was when
they pass it on to the next generation as it was when they got it. I want a
world that as people are needed in other areas of the economy they can be
freed from the back breaking labor of hand farming. I don't want to preserve
our soils I want to improve them. I see the only successful future of the
world as one where education, health care, and opportunity are available to
all. Feeding them is number one on the list and health is number two. They
have to be met before you can educate anyone. I expect that health care will
be the easiest in the coming century. Food next and education impossible in
large parts of the world.


In the years I farmed I tried to do that. I was not as succubus as I would
have like to have been But out of over 10,000 acres I worked at one time or
another on 20 acres is worse than when I took it on. A heavy rainfall event
caught it in cotton that I had not had time to put to wheat because I got it
too late in the year. I should have planted to a close rooted summer crop
but the land lord wanted another year of cotton. I could of probably changed
his mined if I had tried harder. I maintained the terraces and flood control
structures and added some of my own and planted a good many spots that
washed to grass it only cost an acre or two usualy and stopped a lot of
problems.

I left them every one with better more balanced fertility than when I got
them.

We are still working to put in the best practices on the land we own.
Spending nearly twice what a center pivot would cost to put in drip partly
because it pays better but it also uses less water a very precious commodity
in west Texas and by using drip we could use the shallow local recharge
aquiver that has only dropped 1 foot in 50 years and drilling 6 wells
instead drilling one well thorough to the Olagalla fossil water that would
probably have given us all the water we needed all our lives but it is
dropping a foot a year. Had I don't that the government would have let me
deduct the decrease in value of my land from the falling water table. This
way they don't But this way my son and his kids will still have water.

I am looking a doing something similar on my dad's place. The circumstances
are different and the whole thing hinges on the water quality. If it is good
enough for use forever we go if not we don't use.

I spent 5 years working on spray technology to reduce the amount of
fertilzer and herbicide by half with out reducing their effect.

In my 45 year of hands on work with agriculture I am convinced that
technology has steadily improved yields and reduced the impact of farming on
the environment. In the years after the war we got carried away with
pesticides and over did them but we are using every resource at our disposal
to do more with less. In my life grain yields have doubled and we need to do
it again before I die if I live as long as many in my family. I am satisfied
that the best affronts of science are the only way we have a chance to
improve the output of agriculture.

If you have a way to meet the needs of the coming century with out the every
effort of science I would be interested in hearing how we double the world
out put of food and do it where it is needed and not have situation like
Africa where food is being with held from starving people over some lame
excuse or another. If it wasn't GM it would be something. This is not the
first problem like this nor will it be the last. The only sure way to feed a
man is to give him a plant he can raise in his back yard. Preferable a
native one that deals with the climate. Corn is not a drought or heat
tolerant plant.

I know you are a protester at heart and protests shine the light of day on
situation that need correction but they aren't the way to correct them.
That's the job for people like me that fully understand the ramification or
a least have some idea what to look for when you change a faming system.

Best regards
Gordon