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.

--
Jeff

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.

The message
from contains these words:

In article ,
FarmI ask@itshall be given wrote:

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

Let's all start panicking now :-)

Edwina Curry was right all the time :-)

Janet

"Janet Baraclough" wrote in message
...
The message
from contains these words:

In article ,
FarmI ask@itshall be given wrote:

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

Let's all start panicking now :-)

Edwina Curry was right all the time :-)



About John Major?

mark

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

Janet Baraclough wrote:
The message
from contains these words:

In article ,
FarmI ask@itshall be given wrote:

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

Let's all start panicking now :-)

Edwina Curry was right all the time :-)

What she said was very probably technically correct at the time, hard to
get the evidence and the farming lobby really didn't like it.

They did clean up their act after egg sales plummeted.

Worse things happened in Belgium in 1999 when their government
deliberately hid massive national contamination of chicken feed with
dioxins and PCBS from waste transformer oil. Dodgy feed merchants
cutting corners and a quality control system that was "industry
friendly" and corrupt at the highest levels.

http://www.ping.be/chlorophiles/en/com/en_di_egg.html

The whistleblower who worked for an insurance company dealing with
mysterious chicken deaths was punished for doing his job correctly.
Shoot the messenger!

Luckily our chickens lived on grain and whatever they could scratch out
of the ground. But eggs and chicken disappeared from supermarkets
overnight when the story finally broke. I can't recall if any of the
culprits were forced to resign but in Belgium it is highly unlikely.

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