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#46
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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. |
#47
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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. |
#48
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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#49
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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. |
#50
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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. |
#51
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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/ |
#52
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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#54
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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. |
#55
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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#56
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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 |
#57
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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. |
#58
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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. |
#59
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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#60
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Compost Heap. Horse Manure. Pathogens.
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 |
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