In article ,
Jeff Layman wrote:
Wild Billy wrote:

Do many people in the UK show signs of "Mad Cow Disease"?

No, and they never did, although it was a tragedy for those families who
lost loved ones.

It was just one of those hyped-up extraordinarily rare diseases which
"professors" who should know better (but obviously didn't) pontificated
about in a purely self-publicising manner. The main pathogenic effect of
MCD was to sell newspapers.

That's utter tripe - to make an awful pun!

The government had covered it up for so long, and its properties were
such, that the 'worst plausible' scenario was that it would become
the dominating cause of death in the UK and reduce the national life
expectancy by a decade or more. Yes, THAT bad.

And, precisely because of its properties, it wasn't possible to
refine the estimates of its seriousness for several years. Nobody
knew whether it would be negligible (as it seems to be) or approach
the 'worst plausible' scenario. Even now, we aren't quite certain
that it won't become a hundred times more serious than it is at
present, though it is unlikely.

Furthermore, such a disease had been predicted by the government's
scientific advisors, who repeatedly refused to support relaxing
the animal feed processing regulations. The Whitehall mandarins
then replaced them by a more docile (and possibly more ignorant)
set, relaxed the regulations and created a new disease.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote in message
...
In article ,
Jeff Layman wrote:
Wild Billy wrote:

Do many people in the UK show signs of "Mad Cow Disease"?

No, and they never did, although it was a tragedy for those families who
lost loved ones.

It was just one of those hyped-up extraordinarily rare diseases which
"professors" who should know better (but obviously didn't) pontificated
about in a purely self-publicising manner. The main pathogenic effect of
MCD was to sell newspapers.

That's utter tripe - to make an awful pun!

The government had covered it up for so long, and its properties were
such, that the 'worst plausible' scenario was that it would become
the dominating cause of death in the UK and reduce the national life
expectancy by a decade or more. Yes, THAT bad.

And, precisely because of its properties, it wasn't possible to
refine the estimates of its seriousness for several years. Nobody
knew whether it would be negligible (as it seems to be) or approach
the 'worst plausible' scenario. Even now, we aren't quite certain
that it won't become a hundred times more serious than it is at
present, though it is unlikely.

Furthermore, such a disease had been predicted by the government's
scientific advisors, who repeatedly refused to support relaxing
the animal feed processing regulations. The Whitehall mandarins
then replaced them by a more docile (and possibly more ignorant)
set, relaxed the regulations and created a new disease.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

I think you made the OP's point. The worst plausible scenario was not
plausible.

wrote:
In article ,
Jeff Layman wrote:
Wild Billy wrote:
Do many people in the UK show signs of "Mad Cow Disease"?
No, and they never did, although it was a tragedy for those families who
lost loved ones.

It was just one of those hyped-up extraordinarily rare diseases which
"professors" who should know better (but obviously didn't) pontificated
about in a purely self-publicising manner. The main pathogenic effect of
MCD was to sell newspapers.

It didn't do cattle farmers much good. They took all the flack but were
not responsible for it. Animals died a particularly nasty death as did a
few very unlucky humans. Most could be traced back to cheap and nasty
mechanically recovered meat characteristic of your average junk food
vendor. Some real cuts of meat also ceased to exist as a result.

And all to make a few extra bucks for the feed companies by cutting
corners on the processing.

That's utter tripe - to make an awful pun!

The government had covered it up for so long, and its properties were
such, that the 'worst plausible' scenario was that it would become
the dominating cause of death in the UK and reduce the national life
expectancy by a decade or more. Yes, THAT bad.

It was bad enough that living in the UK during the relevant period
prevented you giving blood in countries nominally free from BSE/nv-CJD.
The infectious agent was just too hard to detect in the early days.

And, precisely because of its properties, it wasn't possible to
refine the estimates of its seriousness for several years. Nobody
knew whether it would be negligible (as it seems to be) or approach
the 'worst plausible' scenario. Even now, we aren't quite certain
that it won't become a hundred times more serious than it is at
present, though it is unlikely.

Prions seem to be rather potent infective agents if they get the chance.
It is also potentially a very slow burning infection in humans so it is
possible that the damage already done will only show up around 2030.

Furthermore, such a disease had been predicted by the government's
scientific advisors, who repeatedly refused to support relaxing
the animal feed processing regulations. The Whitehall mandarins
then replaced them by a more docile (and possibly more ignorant)
set, relaxed the regulations and created a new disease.

It isn't clear whether they created a new disease or massively amplified
the transmission rate of an existing low level illness by forcing
ruminants to become cannibals and adding diseased meat into the mix.

I suspect if they had restricted this cavalier practice of putting
noxious junk into animal food to pigs there would not have been a
problem. Omnivores are better able to cope with a dodgy diet. Infected
cows died a horrible death which did at least alert people to the
problem. It only really made the news when it got too common to ignore.

The official view at first was that it was scrapie which was the
equivalent disease in sheep didn't pose a problem for humans. That was
fine until people started to die of nv-CJD. I would still like to see
some of the cowboys that relaxed the rules prosecuted. YMMV

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:

It didn't do cattle farmers much good. They took all the flack but were
not responsible for it. Animals died a particularly nasty death as did a
few very unlucky humans. Most could be traced back to cheap and nasty
mechanically recovered meat characteristic of your average junk food
vendor. Some real cuts of meat also ceased to exist as a result.

And all to make a few extra bucks for the feed companies by cutting
corners on the processing.

Precisely.

Prions seem to be rather potent infective agents if they get the chance.
It is also potentially a very slow burning infection in humans so it is
possible that the damage already done will only show up around 2030.

Precisely.

It isn't clear whether they created a new disease or massively amplified
the transmission rate of an existing low level illness by forcing
ruminants to become cannibals and adding diseased meat into the mix.

No, it has been definitely identified as different from scrapie,
in being more easily transmitted across species and (if I recall)
rather nastier even in sheep.

I suspect if they had restricted this cavalier practice of putting
noxious junk into animal food to pigs there would not have been a
problem. Omnivores are better able to cope with a dodgy diet. Infected
cows died a horrible death which did at least alert people to the
problem. It only really made the news when it got too common to ignore.

It was also due to a couple of whistle-blowers. The government was
doing its usual (attempting to scapegoat them) when the publicity
started, and they backpedalled as fast as only Whitehall can. If it
hadn't been for them, we would have had an extra couple of years
before any action was taken.



Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
The moderator wrote:


[ Re vCJD ]

I think you made the OP's point. The worst plausible scenario was not
plausible.

You're wrong. It was horribly plausible, given what was known at
the time.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
wrote:

In article ,
The moderator wrote:


[ Re vCJD ]

I think you made the OP's point. The worst plausible scenario was not
plausible.

You're wrong. It was horribly plausible, given what was known at
the time.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Bottom line for me is try not to eat any thing that eats it own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovine_...ncephalopathy„

Bill

--

Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

http://prototype.nytimes.com/gst/articleSkimmer/

Wild Billy wrote:
In article ,
wrote:

In article
, FarmI
ask@itshall be given wrote:

Hmmmm CDC. An American site.

I wonder who it was that wrote:
"A lot of such rubbish is written by Merkins, who manage to make
Little Englanders look intelligent. You need to be able to judge
which authors have Clue and which don't." ;-P

I did. The CDC is a respected organisation, which doesn't mean that
its pronouncements are gospel. The Merkins I was referring to are
a different class of Web-making pest, as undesirable as RSM.

What do Regional Sales Managers have to do with anything?


At last count, three people have died of Hendra Virus.

Let's all start panicking now :-)

Do many people in the UK show signs of "Mad Cow Disease"?



Only the politicians

David

wrote:
In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
It didn't do cattle farmers much good. They took all the flack but were
not responsible for it. Animals died a particularly nasty death as did a
few very unlucky humans. Most could be traced back to cheap and nasty
mechanically recovered meat characteristic of your average junk food
vendor. Some real cuts of meat also ceased to exist as a result.

And all to make a few extra bucks for the feed companies by cutting
corners on the processing.

Precisely.

Prions seem to be rather potent infective agents if they get the chance.
It is also potentially a very slow burning infection in humans so it is
possible that the damage already done will only show up around 2030.

Precisely.

It isn't clear whether they created a new disease or massively amplified
the transmission rate of an existing low level illness by forcing
ruminants to become cannibals and adding diseased meat into the mix.

No, it has been definitely identified as different from scrapie,
in being more easily transmitted across species and (if I recall)
rather nastier even in sheep.

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that it was scrapie. More that it was a
pre-existing condition in just a handful of cows either arising
spontaneously or as a very low level rare infection that stayed below
the radar. If a vet only saw one case in a lifetime for instance.

It was only when we provided a means for the infection to spread rapidly
that exponential growth in the number of cases occurred.

I suspect if they had restricted this cavalier practice of putting
noxious junk into animal food to pigs there would not have been a
problem. Omnivores are better able to cope with a dodgy diet. Infected
cows died a horrible death which did at least alert people to the
problem. It only really made the news when it got too common to ignore.

It was also due to a couple of whistle-blowers. The government was
doing its usual (attempting to scapegoat them) when the publicity
started, and they backpedalled as fast as only Whitehall can. If it
hadn't been for them, we would have had an extra couple of years
before any action was taken.

I wonder if Gummers granddaughter still eats burgers?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/369625.stm

After that total fiasco it was no surprise that government statements
about GM food being safe to eat were not believed.

Regards,
Martin Brown

In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply that it was scrapie. More that it was a
pre-existing condition in just a handful of cows either arising
spontaneously or as a very low level rare infection that stayed below
the radar. If a vet only saw one case in a lifetime for instance.

Ah. Yes, I agree that is possible. I believe that the consensus
is that it was a new variant of scrapie, but nobody knows for sure,
and your hypothesis is very plausible.

I wonder if Gummers granddaughter still eats burgers?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/369625.stm

After that total fiasco it was no surprise that government statements
about GM food being safe to eat were not believed.

The motto of the British government is "Never tell the truth when a
lie will do."


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote:
In article ,
RJBL wrote:
Cl. tetani; Cl. Welchii; various E.coli and salmonella strains and
Cryptosporidium all are risks from the use of farmyard and stable
manures. Historically, the biggest risk to agricultural labourers and
gardeners has been tetanus and gas-gangrene infections of, often, very
trivial wounds. The extent to which the organic veg growing fad has been
responsible for the increase, over the last few decades is unestimated.
Best to keep your AT injections up to date and wash and boil everything
that you eat from your veg / salad patch

Oh, nuts! WHAT increase in tetanus and gas-gangrene in the UK?

The historical dangers were because a LOT of farm animals died from
tetanus, anthrax etc. and the spores were everywhere. Well, they
still are, but are not transmitted by that route any more because
of the efficiency with which infected animals are detected and
disposed of. Yes, keep your tetanus innoculation up to date, but
don't use two century old information as a guide to safe practices.

A lot of the others you mention are something that most people have
some immunity to, or even aren't pathogens at all (for example, you
NEED E. coli to stay healthy). There is also increasing evidence
that preventing children from being exposed to them increases the
risk of much more serious problems. Exercise your immune system
and stop fussing.

Yes, of course, some people are at special risk. Don't START
training your immune system in old age or when ill, and so on.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.
Sorry missing clause in original post. Should have read :-

The extent to which the organic veg growing fad has been responsible for the increase, over the last few decades, in enteric illness is unestimated.

The various enteritis illness, some trivial some not so, have increased
in frequency by a couple of orders of magnitude since the 1960's. If you
refer back to your old bacteriology notes you will see that Cl. tet. and
Cl Wel. are both common commensals in the herbivore gut and their
sporulation occurs in the soil after the horse or cow has excreted the
bugs. Sure, tetanus and gas-gangrene are now rare in the UK; probably
because any injury requiring even outpatient treatment get an AT shot as
routine. From time to time cases occur of very trivial injuries - eg
thorn prickles whilst pruning, which are not considered worth further
attention until tetanus has developed.

Yep, we all need or resident E. coli - but not one of the enteropathic
strains. If you are into organic methods treat any edible produce as
contaminated

rjbl

wrote:
In article ,
The moderator wrote:


[ Re vCJD ]

I think you made the OP's point. The worst plausible scenario was not
plausible.

You're wrong. It was horribly plausible, given what was known at
the time.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

To twist the original thread name, your reply is bullshit. "Horribly
plausible"? To consider what might occur there is Definite, Probable,
Possible, and Plausible. It was plausible that the earth was flat until
proved otherwise. I suppose it was plausible that the moon was made of
green cheese before the facts were examined carefully.

I suggest you go back and read some of the "scientific" comments made at the
time. I had access to all the main medical and general (such as "Nature")
journals at the time (1996) and could not believe what I was reading in
them. I was ashamed to be called a scientist. The term "junk science"
appeared a dozen of so years earlier, and many of the comments were junk
science in spades. After reading several of the "plausible" scenarios I made
the very simple decision to continue eating beef - even mince. I put my
mouth where my money was to turn a saying. I did really well as the price
of beef fell. In fact, I was wrong in my original posting - the main
pathogenic effect was on unfortunate famers. I haven't checked the figures,
but I would guess that more beef farmers have died through stress or suicide
as a result of financial worries caused by MCD than those people who have
died from MCD.

Here is a comment from the first news archive in
http://www.mad-cow.org/00/archive_frame.html
'Few understood that when it comes to safety in food, the perception of risk
is not mathematical. It's psychological. One young man who gave up beef
explained his decision this way: "They say the risk of getting the disease
is one in a million or about the same as winning the lottery. And that may
be true. But every week I play the lottery."'

Someone will win the lottery, and someone will die of MCD, but the figures
are heavily in favour of the lottery. In over 13 years since MCD appeared,
there have been only 200 deaths or so WORLDWIDE from it, with just under 170
in the UK.

Hopefully, we will both be contributing to this newsgroup in 25 years time
or so. One of us will have been proved wrong. It won't be me.

--
Jeff

In article ,
RJBL wrote:

The various enteritis illness, some trivial some not so, have increased
in frequency by a couple of orders of magnitude since the 1960's. ...

Oh, really? Do you have any evidence that this is anything more than
a recording artifact? Back in the 1960s, most people didn't call a
doctor for mere D&V, whereas they do now. Related to this, there has
been a HUGE increase in the number of people who are seriously infirm,
because modern medical aid prevents them dying from other causes.

A secondary effect, which particularly affects the serious incidents,
is that the population has much less immunity now than it did then,
because it has not had the exposure. It isn't clear how much that
affects the statistics.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Jeff Layman wrote:

To twist the original thread name, your reply is bullshit. "Horribly
plausible"? To consider what might occur there is Definite, Probable,
Possible, and Plausible. It was plausible that the earth was flat until
proved otherwise. I suppose it was plausible that the moon was made of
green cheese before the facts were examined carefully.

I am afraid that it is YOU who are bullshitting! Let me remind you
of the facts when the news first broke:

1) There was a scrapie-like disease that was MUCH more aggressive,
was widespread in cattle and had been seen in humans.

2) This was believed to be a variant of scrapie that had crossed
the species boundary and mutated, due to the practice of feeding
processed sheep offal to cattle.

3) The agent was known to be unaffected by cooking.

4) It was known to be mainly in the central nervous system, but
there was good evidence that it also occurred in musculature and in
milk.

5) We didn't have a clue what proportion of the UK cattle herd
was infected, and educated guesses ranged from 0.1% to 99%.

6) We didn't have a clue of how infectious it was, or how soon
after infection it could be transmitted, either in cattle or humans.

7) We didn't have a clue about how long its symptoms took to
develop, except that it was not a matter of months.

8) We had no test except an autopsy, and even that was very
unreliable except in advanced cases.

The nightmare scenario was that it was highly infectious, but very
slow developing. If that were the case, 99% of the UK cattle herd
could have been infected, possibly 70% of the UK human population,
but the symptoms wouldn't peak in the latter for 2-3 decades.

The optimal scenario was that it wasn't very infectious at all, and a
large proportion of infected subjects showed symptoms within a couple
of years. There was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to distinguish this one in
plausibility from the nightmare scenario.

The government was attempting to ignore the problem, and to carry
on, but the experts used the the press-induced hysteria to force it
to (a) stop feeding ruminant protein to ruminants and (b) investigate
vCJD as a matter of urgency. They were right to do so.

What evidence do YOU have that the optimal scenario (which seems to
be the case) could have been determined to be more plausible than
the nightmare one USING ONLY INFORMATION AVAILABLE AT THE TIME.

I suggest you go back and read some of the "scientific" comments made at the
time. I had access to all the main medical and general (such as "Nature")
journals at the time (1996) and could not believe what I was reading in
them. I was ashamed to be called a scientist. ...

I did. I also extracted the information from them and did my own
analysis. Nature's statistical quality is traditionally awful, so
I obviously didn't rely on any conclusions published there.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote:
In article ,
RJBL wrote:
The various enteritis illness, some trivial some not so, have increased
in frequency by a couple of orders of magnitude since the 1960's. ...

Oh, really? Do you have any evidence that this is anything more than
a recording artifact? Back in the 1960s, most people didn't call a
doctor for mere D&V, whereas they do now. Related to this, there has
been a HUGE increase in the number of people who are seriously infirm,
because modern medical aid prevents them dying from other causes.

A secondary effect, which particularly affects the serious incidents,
is that the population has much less immunity now than it did then,
because it has not had the exposure. It isn't clear how much that
affects the statistics.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Nick

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

No evidence that it is any more than a recording artifact at all, of
course.

As I infer that you know well already public health and epidemiological
data is bedevilled by recording artifacts; changes in notifiability
criteria; changes in clinical diagnostic fashions and changes in the
availability of experimental subjects to clinical examination. The
recorded data do, indeed, show a very large increase in the apparent
incidence of the minor enteric illnesses since the 1960s; as was
predicted by Betty Hobbs all those years ago when the home food freezer
first entered the consumer market in volume and home freezing
preservation became fashionable.

I guess that most patients still don't consult their GP when hit by a
simple D&V bug. Typically for the first 24hrs because they cannot,
phyically, get to the Clinic and thereafter because they feel,
obviously, sufficiently recovered not to need further treatment. I
surmise that the public records may show that the increase has been in
cases of illness perceived to be 'severe' rather than 'trivial'.

The original point was that gardeners would be prudent to be aware of
the potential bacteriological hazards of the organic gardening fashion.
It appears to be true, from the WHO published data, that those societies
which practice, per force, strictly organic animal and human faecal soil
fertilisation suffer high incidences of the enteric illnesses. The
possible exception being China - where food is invariably cooked, and at
high temperatures, and drinking water is invariably boiled - and has
been for at least the last two thousand years.

Your secondary observation re change in population immune response is
intriguing. Many allergies and allergy originated illnesses like asthma
do, indeed, appear to have become much more frequent in the last thirty
or so. Various estimates suggest that the frequency of childhood asthma
has increased between one and two orders of magnitude over that time. It
seems to have exactly paralleled the decline of tobacco smoking in the
population over the same period, although it would, of course, be
heretical to postulate any causal connection.

Returning to the exam question as originally set:-

1. Hot composting of material including horse and cow dung will probably
at least pasteurise the material and thus kill off most/all the
pathogenic bacteria. It may not destroy any Clostridial spores that have
been formed in the compost; these will remain, potentially, dangerous
for decades.

2. Cold composting will, almost certainly, not leave the compost safe in
respect to the common pathogens. These may well die out in the compost
over time.

Takeaway message, still, :-

A. Keep your AT course up to date;

B. Treat any organically raised garden produce as contaminated. Wash it
thoroughly and cook it properly.

rjbl

On 2009-07-16 13:01:23 +0100, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given said:

"George.com" wrote in message

My dogs also enjoy a tasty bit of horse dung.

Dogs really can be such nasty little snots at times.

The other day, I went to visit my neighbour. I give her eggs, she gives me
horse poop and we both think we get the best part of the deal.

One of her tenants who rented one of the houses on her farm died and the
tenant's Corgi ended up being adopted by my neighbour.

The Corgi was lying on the Persian rug under an old church pew in the entry
hall and chewing something with real relish. When we investigated it was a
half moon shaped thing which turned out to be a paring from the horse's hoof
from when the farrier had shod the horses that morning.

I usually have a cast iron stomach but for some reason seeing the Corgi
doing this really turned my stomach.

Oh but this is really well known. When I had a horse I used to take
him off to the farrier every so often and there were always a few dogs
hanging about in a hopeful sort of way. The farrier flung the parings
out the door and the dogs fell on them as if starving! What it is
about dogs eating poo I have no idea but one of mine used to eat fox
poo. I think a dog breeder once suggested to me that it was something
to do with obtaining iron but I have no idea if this is true.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
Shrubs & perennials. Tender & exotics.
South Devon