Report on the monitoring and testing of ruminants for the presence of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) in the EU in 2008

Report on the monitoring and testing of ruminants for the presence of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) in the EU in 2008


1. SUMMARY In 2008, a total of 10 051 584 bovine, 465 276 ovine and 152 037 caprine animals were tested in the EU 27 in the framework of the TSE monitoring programmes. 125 bovine, 1 936 ovine and 1 214 caprine animals turned out positive. 1 557 871 risk bovine animals and 8 490 256 healthy animals slaughtered for human consumption were tested by rapid tests. 2 352 bovine animals were tested in the framework of passive surveillance (animals reported as official BSE suspects. In addition, 1 105 animals were tested in the framework of culling of animals with an epidemiological connection to a BSE case. 93 % of positive cases were detected by the active monitoring (testing of risk animals, healthy slaughtered and culled cattle) and 7 % were detected by passive surveillance. No BSE cases were found in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania, Slovenia and Sweden. The number of BSE cases and the overall prevalence in tested animals decreased by respectively 29 % and 25 % in 2008 compared to 2007. 463 201 ovine animals were tested by active monitoring, while 2 075 were animals reported as official TSE suspects and therefore subjected to laboratory examination. In caprine animals, the numbers of tests in the respective groups were 150 566 (active monitoring) and 1 471 (TSE suspects). Some 743 and 63 TSE cases in respectively sheep and goats confirmed in 2008 were subjected to discriminatory testing. None of them have been confirmed to be BSE. In addition, in the framework of a survey for chronic wasting disease (CWD) in cervids, as required in Commission Decision 2007/182/EC, 12 025 animals were tested between 2006 and 2008 hunting seasons. None of them turned out positive. All Member States submitted information on the TSE testing of bovine, ovine and caprine animals. In addition to the Member States, Norway also submitted information on their TSE testing programmes.


Further information: Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General, Unit E2; fax: +32-2-296.90.62; e-mail: SANCO-TSEMONITORING@ ec.europa.eu



http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biosafety/tse_bse/docs/annual_report_tse2008_en.pdf



Sunday, April 12, 2009

BSE MAD COW TESTING USA 2009 FIGURES Month Number of Tests

Feb 2009 -- 1,891

Jan 2009 -- 4,620


http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse/surveillance/ongoing_surv_results.shtml



(good luck with the aphis bse testing results urls...TSS)

SEE FULL TEXT ;


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/04/bse-mad-cow-testing-usa-2009-figures.html



Wednesday, August 19, 2009

CFIA Enhances Animal Disease Reporting



http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/disemala/rep/2009bseesbe.shtml



http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/disemala/rep/2009cwdmdce.shtml



http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/disemala/rep/2009scrtree.shtml




NICE JOB CANADA !

SEE FULL TEXT OF ALL THIS HERE ;

2009 UPDATE ON ALABAMA AND TEXAS MAD COWS 2005 and 2006


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2006/08/bse-atypical-texas-and-alabama-update.html



Tuesday, July 14, 2009

U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary and BSE Red Book Date: February 14, 2000 at 8:56 am PST

WHERE did we go wrong $$$


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/07/us-emergency-bovine-spongiform.html



Sunday, December 28, 2008

MAD COW DISEASE USA DECEMBER 28, 2008 an 8 year review of a failed and flawed policy


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/12/mad-cow-disease-usa-december-28-2008-8.html



Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Mad Cow Disease typical and atypical strains, was there a cover-up ? August 20, 2008


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/08/bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy-mad.html




Monday, May 11, 2009

Rare BSE mutation raises concerns over risks to public health


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/05/rare-bse-mutation-raises-concerns-over.html




Monday, October 19, 2009

Atypical BSE, BSE, and other human and animal TSE in North America Update October 19, 2009


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/10/atypical-bse-bse-and-other-human-and.html




Sent: Thursday, November 05, 2009 12:12 PM Subject: re-FOIA REQUEST ON FEED RECALL PRODUCT contaminated with prohibited material Recall # V-258-2009 and Recall # V-256-2009


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/11/re-foia-request-on-feed-recall-product.html




Friday, September 4, 2009

FOIA REQUEST ON FEED RECALL PRODUCT 429,128 lbs. feed for ruminant animals may have been contaminated with prohibited material Recall # V-258-2009


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/09/foia-request-on-feed-recall-product.html




Saturday, August 29, 2009

FOIA REQUEST FEED RECALL 2009 Product may have contained prohibited materials Bulk Whole Barley, Recall # V-256-2009


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/08/foia-request-feed-recall-2009-product.html




Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Nor98 scrapie identified in the United States J Vet Diagn Invest 21:454-463 (2009)


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/07/nor98-scrapie-identified-in-united.html




Saturday, May 2, 2009

APHIS AND WHO PLAN TO EXEMPT THE ATYPICAL SCRAPIE NOR-98 FROM REGULATIONS AT MEETING THIS MONTH


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/05/aphis-and-who-plan-to-exempt-atypical.html




Monday, October 26, 2009

Similarities between Forms of Sheep Scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Are Encoded by Distinct Prion Types Published online before print October 22, 2009 This Article



http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/10/similarities-between-forms-of-sheep.html




Friday, May 29, 2009

Characterization of a U.S. Sheep Scrapie Isolate with Short Incubation Time


http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2009/05/characterization-of-us-sheep-scrapie.html




SCRAPIE DETECTED IN ANOTHER GOAT USA UPDATE MARCH 2009


http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2009/04/scrapie-detected-in-another-goat-usa.html



http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/





TSS

Three imported cows aged over 30 months enter food supply without being tested for BSE

Three imported cows aged over 30 months enter food supply without being tested for BSE

Wednesday 30 September 2009

The Agency has been notified that meat from three cows aged over 30 months, which were not tested for BSE, has entered the food supply.

As specified risk material (SRM) was removed and it is unlikely that the cows were infected with BSE, any risk to human health is extremely low.

The three cows were aged between 31 and 34 months when slaughtered on 1 July 2009 at RWM Food Group’s abattoir in Langport, Somerset. They had been imported from Estonia in December 2007. BSE testing is mandatory for cattle born there if slaughtered for human consumption at over 30 months of age.

The error was discovered on 7 September 2009 during routine cross checks of slaughter and BSE test data. By the time the failure was discovered, all of the carcasses had left the premises and subsequent enquiries indicate that the affected meat is no longer in the food supply chain. Background to BSE testingSince the beginning of this year, the BSE testing age increased to over 48 months for cattle born in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Cattle aged over 30 months and born in any other country, including Estonia, are only allowed to enter the food supply if they have first tested negative for BSE. If there is no BSE test, all parts of the carcass must be condemned.

SRM is those parts of the animal that contain almost all BSE infectivity, if the animal is infected with BSE. SRM includes the vertebral column of cattle aged over 30 months.

http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2009/sep/bse


Opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee on the GEOGRAPHICAL RISK OF BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (GBR) in Estonia adopted by the SSC on 10 April 2003

snip...

CONCLUSION ON THE CURRENT GBR The BSE-agent may have reached the territory of Estonia before its independence in 1991. After 1995 significant amounts of MBM were imported from BSE risk countries. A significant risk that BSE infectivity entered processing therefore exists since some years, at the latest since 2000, when domestic cattle potentially exposed to contaminated imported MBM around 1995, could have entered processing while approaching the end of the incubation period. Given the instability of the system, this could have lead to BSE cases. It is concluded that it is likely but not confirmed that domestic cattle are (clinically or pre-clinically) infected with the BSE-agent (GBR III). EXPECTED DEVELOPMENT OF THE GBR As long as the system remains unstable, the probability of cattle to be (pre-clinically or clinically) infected with the BSE-agent will further increase, even if no additional external challenges occur.

snip...

full text ;

http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/ssc/out335_en.pdf


TSS

CFIA Enhances Animal Disease Reporting

CFIA Enhances Animal Disease Reporting

CFIA Enhances Animal Disease Reporting August 17, 2009 – The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will provide a comprehensive view of Canada's animal health status by posting to its website all detections of federally reportable diseases. Information will be updated monthly.

This revised reporting approach captures confirmed cases of federally reportable diseases, including scrapie, chronic wasting disease (CWD), anthrax, and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), in farmed animals. In addition to providing monthly reports, the CFIA will continue to immediately announce any detections of reportable, foreign, or newly emerging diseases which pose significant health or economic risks.

Early disease detection and control are critical to limiting the effects of animal disease outbreaks. The CFIA reminds all livestock producers to regularly monitor their animals for signs of disease, and immediately contact their veterinarian if animal disease is suspected.

The CFIA is committed to providing all stakeholders, including the general public, media and trading partners, with information about disease detections. Those interested can subscribe to receive e-mail notifications every time reportable disease information is updated on the CFIA website. For more information, visit

http://www.inspection.gc.ca/




-30-

For information:

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Media relations: 613-773-6600


http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/newcom/2009/20090817e.shtml



Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) cases confirmed in Canada in 2009 BSE is a reportable disease under the Health of Animals Regulations. This means that all suspected cases must be reported to the CFIA.

The following table lists individual animals confirmed to be infected with BSE in Canada in 2009.

Updated: 2009-07-31

Date confirmed Location Animal type infected Age of animal May 15 Alberta Dairy Cow 80 months


http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/disemala/rep/2009bseesbe.shtml



Herds infected with CWD in Canada in 2009 The CFIA works with provincial governments and industry to conduct regular CWD surveillance. Ongoing provincial surveillance for CWD varies with each particular province’s perceived threat and infection status. Testing is mandatory in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Yukon; it is voluntary elsewhere.

In addition, CWD is a reportable disease under the Health of Animals Regulations. This means that all suspected cases must be reported to the CFIA.

The following table lists domestic cervid herds confirmed to be infected with CWD in Canada in 2009.

Updated: 2009-07-31

Date confirmed Location Animal type infected February 27 Saskatchewan Elk March 24 Saskatchewan Elk


http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/disemala/rep/2009cwdmdce.shtml



Flocks infected with scrapie in Canada in 2009 The CFIA, in co-operation with provincial governments and industry, launched a national scrapie surveillance program in 2005. Under the program, producers are encouraged to report animals that die on the farm or exhibit symptoms of the disease.

In addition, scrapie is a reportable disease under the Health of Animals Regulations. This means that all suspected cases must be reported to the CFIA.

The following table lists sheep flocks and/or goat herds confirmed to be infected with scrapie in Canada in 2009.

Updated: 2009-07-31

Date confirmed Location Animal type infected April 29 Quebec Sheep May 21* Saskatchewan Sheep June 12 Quebec Sheep July 23* Alberta Sheep

*Atypical scrapie


http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/disemala/rep/2009scrtree.shtml



PLEASE NOTE THE TWO CASES OF THE ATYPICAL SCRAPIE CASE ON MAY 21, 2009 AND JULY 23, 2009. i suppose they are speaking of the Nor-98 atypical scrapie ???


NICE JOB CANADA !!!


NOW, what about the USA ???


Sunday, April 12, 2009

BSE MAD COW TESTING USA 2009 FIGURES Month Number of Tests

Feb 2009 -- 1,891

Jan 2009 -- 4,620


http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse/surveillance/ongoing_surv_results.shtml




SEE FULL TEXT ;


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/04/bse-mad-cow-testing-usa-2009-figures.html



Monday, May 4, 2009

Back to the Past With New TSE Testing Agricultural Research/May-June 2009


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/05/back-to-past-with-new-tse-testing.html



Sunday, May 10, 2009

Identification and characterization of bovine spongiform encephalopathy cases diagnosed and NOT diagnosed in the United States


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/05/identification-and-characterization-of.html



Tuesday, July 14, 2009

U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary and BSE Red Book Date: February 14, 2000 at 8:56 am PST

WHERE did we go wrong $$$


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/07/us-emergency-bovine-spongiform.html



Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Nor98 scrapie identified in the United States J Vet Diagn Invest 21:454-463 (2009)


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/07/nor98-scrapie-identified-in-united.html



Monday, June 01, 2009 Biochemical typing of pathological prion protein in aging cattle with BSE

SOMETHING TO PONDER ???

O.K. confusious asks, IF all these new atypical BSEs i.e. new strains of mad cow disease is just an 'OLD COW PRION DISEASE', why then can not the 'old human prion disease' such as the sporadic CJD, be from an 'old cow prion disease', same as the nvCJD 'young people mad cow disease' (which also happens in 74 year old), but why cannot the 'old cow prion diseases', i.e. l-BSE, h-BSE, and ibncBSE, cause the 'old people prion disease', which looks like sporadic CJD. seems that is what some of the pathology is showing ???

OH, that probably makes too much sense, and that the only answer could be that it's all just a happenstance of bad luck and or a spontaneous event, that just happens out of the clear blue sky $$$

IF this is the case, then where are all the SPONTANEOUS BSE CASES OF MAD COW DISEASE IN THE U.S.A., AND WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN BURIED IN THE USA OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS ???


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/06/biochemical-typing-of-pathological.html



Monday, August 17, 2009

FDA asked to ban poultry litter from feed AGAIN 17 Aug 2009 Ban that Poop !


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/08/fda-asked-to-ban-poultry-litter-from.html



Tuesday, August 18, 2009

BSE-The Untold Story - joe gibbs and singeltary 1999 - 2009


http://madcowusda.blogspot.com/2009/08/bse-untold-story-joe-gibbs-and.html



Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Characteristics of Established and Proposed Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Variants


http://creutzfeldt-jakob-disease.blogspot.com/2009/08/characteristics-of-established-and.html



Atypical BSE North America Update February 2009


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/02/atypical-bse-north-america-update.html



Sunday, December 28, 2008

MAD COW DISEASE USA DECEMBER 28, 2008 an 8 year review of a failed and flawed policy


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/12/mad-cow-disease-usa-december-28-2008-8.html



Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Mad Cow Disease typical and atypical strains, was there a cover-up ?


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/08/bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy-mad.html



TSS TWITTER UPDATES NOW ;


http://twitter.com/flounder9

MAD COW COVER-UP USA MASKED AS SPORADIC CJD

Monday, July 27, 2009

U.S.A. HIDING MAD COW DISEASE VICTIMS AS SPORADIC CJD ?

(strange, this would have been my mothers birthday, but she had been dead for 8 years hvCJD confirmed here in the U.S.A....TSS)

CBC’s The National

October 17, 2005

Safe To Eat?

PETER MANSBRIDGE (HOST):

Safe To Eat? She thought her son died of a random illness, one with no known cause, no cure. Now some scientists are questioning whether there's a new link to mad cow disease. Kelly Crowe reports. -

For years, scientists have known that B.S.E. causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. What some people call the human form of Mad Cow Disease. But another form of C.J.D., Sporadic C.J.D., has always confounded them. The most common theory has been that the deadly illness occurs spontaneously with no known cause. Now some of the world's leading scientists in the field are having another look at sporadic C.J.D. and the possibility that it too is linked to mad cow. Here's Kelly Crowe with a feature report.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

It starts out slowly. At first, the victims don't know what's wrong with them. They can't put their finger on it. They keep making little mistakes. The spelling mistakes that just look sloppy... numbers become easily confused... the words on the page become blurry. It's the beginning of a terrifying slide in to dementia and death. That's what happened to Jeff Schwan. Little by little, his brain was ravaged by a disease so rare, his mother had never even heard of it.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN (MOTHER OF JEFF SCHWAN):

And finally on August 11th, we received words you'll never want to hear. He has a disease that has no treatment and no cure, and we just tried to take that in.

NORMAN FOSTER (DOCTOR):

Check eye movements, look right here at my finger.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

It was Dr. Norman Foster who discovered the terrible truth. He specializes in diseases of the brain, and he's the one who finally figured out what was wrong with Jeff Schwan.

NORMAN FOSTER (DOCTOR):

The major problem was a seizure disorder, and that was investigated and treated, but despite treatment, he became progressively worse. And it was unclear at the time what was causing these seizures, and it was suspected that this was due to an encephalitis or meningitis or some other problem, and I strongly advocated that everything be done to identify what the cause of this is, and that led to a brain biopsy. When we examined the tissue under the microscope, we were somewhat surprised to find evidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

Jeff Schwan died from a mysterious illness called Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or Sporadic C.J.D. It's a rare and fatal brain-wasting disease that seems to strike out of nowhere. But was it really just bad luck that killed this healthy 26-year-old man, or is there another explanation? Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a type of prion disease. Prions are proteins found in humans and other mammals, but when an altered form of the prion appears, it somehow starts a critical chain reaction turning healthy prions in to deadly ones that ultimately destroy the brain. Prion diseases are always fatal. There is no cure, no treatment. And science now knows that prion diseases can be spread by eating meat. It was first realized here in Papua New Guinea back in 1957 where a brain-wasting disease called Curu was sweeping through a tribe of cannibals.

Scientists realized these people were developing Curu after feasting on the remains of their dead who were already infected. It was the first evidence that prion diseases could be spread through eating infected material. 30 years later, British cattle began developing a prion disease. It was called B.S.E. or Mad Cow Disease. It was spread when the animals ate feed made from diseased cattle. Then young Britons began dying, and scientists realized humans could catch a prion disease from eating infected beef. That disease is called Variant C.J.D. So far, it has claimed 170 victims. But none of that seems to explain what happened to Jeff Schwan. He had the other prion disease, the one that is thought to strike at random, so-called Sporadic C.J.D. Like the other prion diseases, the brain fills with sponge-like holes, but scientists don't know what causes sporadic C.J.D., and some are asking, could it also be caused by eating meat? Here's one possible clue: The disease sometimes shows up in clusters in people who live near each other. It happens too often to be explained only by chance. British epidemiologist Simon Cousins worked on two scientific studies that documented clusters of the disease in both England and France. The studies concluded that it must be caused by something on the outside, that it can't be just a spontaneous disease.

SIMON COUSINS (EPIDEMIOLOGIST):

The spontaneous event would be, doesn't really explain why they might be clustering. So the clustering is pointing one in the direction of thinking from time to time people are exposed to a common external source.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

One common external source, infected meat. It's a frightening possibility that is being actively investigated by some European scientists. Here in Switzerland, there was an epidemic of Mad Cow Disease in the 1990s, and now they're seeing a more than doubling in the rate of Sporadic C.J.D. Swiss scientists think there might be a connection.

ADRIANO AGUTZY (SCIENTIST):

What we need to find out is whether the whole problem of the enhanced Creutzfeldt-Jakob does, indeed, have something to do with mad cow's disease, but we certainly did have our definite window of exposure, and so if we now, if we had B.S.E. ten years ago and now we have enhanced Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it's unavoidable to ask the question whether the two phenomena are related.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

DR. Adriano Agutzy is one of the world's experts on prion diseases. He says he has ruled out most of the other explanations, and now his main working hypothesis is that at least some Sporadic C.J.D. in Switzerland could be another form of human Mad Cow Disease.

ADRIANO AGUTZY (SCIENTIST):

But this by no means excludes that B.S.E. may manifest itself in humans with different characteristics, and maybe B.S.E. in Switzerland is also different from B.S.E. in the U.K., and then variant C.J.D. will also be different. So I think from the U.K. experience, it's impossible to draw the conclusion that B.S.E. will only give rise to what we know as variant C.J.D.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

What it means is cattle infected with prion disease might be causing Sporadic C.J.D. To find out, the scientists are trying to match the tissue from infected Swiss cattle with the tissue from Swiss victims. If the tissue looks the same on the lab tests, then it will be strong evidence the two are connected. Right next door in Italy, they might have already made that connection. This doctor was studying the brains from B.S.E. infected cattle when he noticed a form of the disease he'd never seen before. He realized it was a new form of Mad Cow Disease. It was the first time scientists realized there could be more than one kind of prion disease in cattle.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN:

So our assumption is that since there is this biochemical similarities together with this, we think there might be a connection between the two.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

He got a second shock when he ran the new cattle prion through the lab tests. It looked exactly like Sporadic C.J.D. He could hardly believe his eyes. He was looking at possible proof that humans could catch a second prion disease from cattle.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN:

Yes, this is only a biochemical evidence because at the beginning when B.S.E. has been discovered and the Variant C.J.D. had been discovered in the U.K., They found the single cell. I mean, the biochemical part of both B.S.E. and variant were similar. We found the same biochemical. There are pathological similarities and ecological similarities.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

There is still one more step to prove the link. This new strain of B.S.E. will be injected into mice that have human genes. It will take two years, but the results will bring scientists a little bit closer to the answer of whether Sporadic C.J.D. is caused by meat. ADRIANO AGUTZY (SCIENTIST):

I think that that is a possibility. Personally, I would say that it's possible that some of the cases are caused, I mean, maybe what would cause Sporadic C.J.D. is a collection of different diseases, and some of it could actually be transmission of B.S.E.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN:

It might be a possibility because it is an infectious disease. I mean, if you get a piece of brain of this with classic C.J.D. and you inoculate the animal, you transmit the disease, but on the other side, it's not clear whether the animal transmit the disease to man.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

Scientists agree that cattle prion disease must be kept out of the human food supply. The problem is finding it before the animal is slaughtered. Bitter experience has already proven that the disease can be lurking even as officials boast that their herd is B.S.E.-free. After years of making those claims, the U.S. has had to admit to a homegrown case of B.S.E. in a Texas cow this past June. And that case was discovered only after testing was dramatically increased. And yet the U.S. and Canada are still only testing cattle that look sick. And with that kind of testing and millions of animals slaughtered every year, the disease is easy to miss. A lesson the Italians already learned. In Italy, they didn't know for sure that they had Mad Cow Disease until they started testing, not just the animals that looked sick, but every single animal over 24 months that goes into the food chain. Now four years later, they've only had one animal that looks sick, but they've found more than 130 cases of Mad Cow Disease in healthy looking animals. In other words, if they hadn't been testing those 130 animals would have gone into the food chain. In North America, they're only looking at symptomatic cases, zero so they could be missing a lot of disease.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN:

Sure, they take only neurological cattle, cattle with neurological symptoms or downer cattle. So this is the so-called passive surveillance. When you have neurological, you make the potential diagnosis of C.J.D. And the only way to get rid of this is that all the animals should be tested, and people at least buy a piece of meat to say this is B.S.E.-free.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

Dr. Agutzy says the United States isn't trying hard enough to find prion disease in its cattle.

ADRIANO AGUTZY (SCIENTIST):

I think that in North America, there is a huge problem because North America has refused for many years to put in place any kind of serious surveillance of cattle, and I think this is a disgrace, and it really cries to Heaven about the fact that particularly the U.S. has just refused to even take into consideration the possibility that B.S.E. may be prevalent. It's a huge problem.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

It's also not clear how widespread Sporadic C.J.D. is. The final diagnosis can only be made after death by examining the brain in an autopsy, but today autopsies are rarely done. And although Sporadic C.J.D. is a rare condition, estimated at one in a million, Dr. Norman Foster suspects the rate is higher.

NORMAN FOSTER (DOCTOR):

In many states in the United States, if a physician suspects a case, they can report it as a public health problem, but there's no mechanism to investigate or no way to pursue this in a systematic way.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

So you could be missing lots of cases?

NORMAN FOSTER (DOCTOR):

So we are missing lots of cases.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

Jeff Schwan is on the official record as just another unfortunate victim of a rare disease that seems to strike for no reason. And for his mother, it is the unanswered questions that weigh most heavily on her shoulders.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN (MOTHER OF JEFF SCHWAN):

So all of these people who are dying of Sporadic C.J.D., they don't have an answer for. It's very, very frustrating because we want answers.

KELLY CROWE (REPORTER):

To get those answers, she must wait for the slow deliberate pace of science. Kelly Crowe, CBC News, Sterling Heights, Michigan.



http://www.healthcoalition.ca/cbccjd.pdf



WHY DID THIS VIDEO NOT SHOW ON EVERY NEWS CHANNEL IN THE U.S.A. $$$

IT IS A DAMNING VIDEO !!!

I WATCHED THIS RECENTLY, and had never seen it. i was so mad, i was spitting nails out faster than a framing gun.

WHY DID THE CANADIAN MEDIA ONLY PRESENT THIS TO THE U.S.A. PUBLIC (thank you very much though), and why has the U.S.A. MEDIA FAILED US ???

WHY DID R-CALF NOT SHOW THIS ??? where was r-calf when you needed them back then $$$


SEE DAMNING VIDEO HERE ;


FINALLY, GOT IT UPLOADED !

SEE THE VIDEO NOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BLOG BELOW ;



http://creutzfeldt-jakob-disease.blogspot.com/2009/07/usa-hiding-mad-cow-disease-victims-as.html




NOW, AFTER SEEING THAT VIDEO, (first watch the video) lets go back in mad cow time here in the USA, shall we.



THERE must be an independent review of this cover-up, and the infamous ENHANCED BSE SURVEILLANCE AND TESTING OF 2004, that was nothing but a cover-up, and blundered at that, and plus a REDO of the testing of no less than 1 million head of cattle tested each year, for five years, with scientist from the EU overseeing the testing protocols, surveillance, and confirmation of all cases.

this video states the 'USA had to _admit_ a home grown case of mad cow in TEXAS." fact was, they did not finally admit anything, IT TOOK AN ACT OF CONGRESS, THE HONORABLE PHYLISS FONG AND THE O.I.G., TO MAKE THEM RETEST AND CONFIRM! that my friend is fact. and only after Prof. Aguzzi, Dr. Jean-Philippe Deslys, Dr. Collinge et al slammed them over the testing of that animal. and then we had the mad cow in Texas that they just refused to test, and was sent to a pet food rendering plant. NO TEST AT ALL. you must realize, when other officials, doctors, and such from other country's confront issues about things in the USA, they must walk on ice when doing so. read inbetween the lines here ;

i wrote all these scientist and doctors and the OIG about that damn texas cow, gave them the evidence i had from TAHC. so did others, but finally fong et al did something.

a bit of history for you mel. file this away. ...

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: RE: Greetings again Professor Aguzzi ... TSS
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2005 09:19:49 +0100
From: "Adriano Aguzzi" To: "'Terry S. Singeltary Sr.'"

Dear Mr. Singeltary

I sympathize with your wish to have the most sensitive assay implemented. However, the situation is not as simple as one might think. In the case of homogeneously distributed agent, biochemical detection of PrPSc is indeed likely to be more sensitive than immunohistochemistry. In the case of variegated, punctate distribution of the agent, morphological methods may indeed be an asset.

There are also issues of feasibility. In my laboratory

, we routinely run phosphotungstic acid precipitation followed by Western blotting. However, this is an extraordinarily cumbersome procedure. The sensitivity is increased vastly, but the amount of work needed is also amazing. There is no way I could see our own procedure implemented for mass screening of millions of cows - unless one would draft a veritable army of laboratory technicians. For all these reasons, while I see all your points, I feel unable to offer a strong public opinion in favor or against any specific methods. The final decision needs to take into account a variety of complex factors, and that is why I believe that it is best left to a panel of experts rather than to a public discussion.

Best regards Adriano Aguzzi
____________________________
Prof. Adriano Aguzzi (MD PhD hc FRCP FRCPath) Institute of Neuropathology, University Hospital of Zürich Schmelzbergstrasse 12, CH-8091 Zürich, Switzerland Tel. ++41-1-255 2107 Tel. (direct line): 2869 Fax: ++41-1-255 4402, cellular: +41-79-320 1516

http://www.unizh.ch/pathol/neuropathologie/




-----Original Message-----


From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr. [mailto:flounder@wt.net]
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2005 20:18
To: adriano@pathol.unizh.ch
Subject: Greetings again Professor Aguzzi ... TSS

Greetings again Professor Aguzzi,

A kind greetings from Texas. I hope you do not mind, but I must ask you several questions that will put you in the hot seat. Someone with credibility must come forward, such as yourself and speak out about the fact of the non scientific approach that USDA et al has take after the first diagnosis of BSE in the USA. This being, the refusal to use Western Blot on any suspicious or inconclusive BSE/TSE test. IHC is like a brain biopsy on trying to diagnose a CJD case. IF you take the sample from a part of the brain that is not that tainted, you will not get a reading. WB is much more sensitive, especially now with the Phospohtugstic acid precipitation step. IF Prusiners CDI was validated, who knows, that might even be more sensitive. Bottom line, we need you to come forward and state publicly ''the facts'' about USDA et al decision not to use WB on not only questionable samples, but on ALL samples. would you be willing to comment on this, to me or someone from the media (under the understanding it will be for the public)? I have several questions for you??? This is very very important in terms of human health (i.e. that nov. pos. pos. incl. neg cow).

P.S. there is one other top TSE scientist that has come forward and said what the USDA et al did with that cow was ''not logical''. (this will not be published for another 3 or 4 weeks). ONE other TOP TSE scientist saying the same thing would be much better for the public to hear and understand. anyway, does not hurt to ask, and i hope you come through here for us. I know this is a very loaded question, but times a wasting, and human health is at risk here...

thank you, with kindest regards,

I am sincerely,

Terry S. Singeltary Sr.



CJD WATCH


http://www.fortunecity.com/healthclub/cpr/349/part1cjd.htm



CJD Watch message board



http://disc.yourwebapps.com/Indices/236650.html





From: TSS
Subject: Re: Feds skipped key mad cow disease test in 2004 case USDA changes its protocols after animal initially had been cleared
Date: June 17, 2005 at 10:35 am PST

In Reply to: Re: Feds skipped key mad cow disease test in 2004 case USDA changes its protocols after animal initially had been cleared posted by TSS on June 17, 2005 at 5:03 am:

##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################

I would like to add to the first paragraph of Adriano Aguzzis comments. We have seen cases in Europe, where a positive result obtained with our Western blot rapid test(Prionics-Check WESTERN)could not be confirmed with IHC, but with the OIE-Western blot procedure, and we have also seen cases where the result could be confirmed by IHC but not by OIE-Western blot. As Adrino Aguzzi pointed out both IHC and OIE-Western have their limitations, but when combined and when performed well they pick up BSE reliably. In case of doubt, i.e. if a rapid test comes out consistently positive but an initial attempt of confirmation with IHC (or OIE-Western) fails, we recommend to routinely do a second test with the respective alternative method. This is the procedure most national reference centers, which are responsible for final confirmation of BSE cases, are following.

Regards Markus Moser Prionics


-----Original Message-----

From: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy [mailto:BSE-L@aegee.org] On Behalf Of Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
Sent: Freitag, 17. Juni 2005 14:07
To: BSE-L@aegee.org
Subject: Re: [CJDVoice] Feds skipped key mad cow disease test in 2004 case USDA changes its protocols after animal initially had been cleared


##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################


-------- Original Message --------


Subject: Re: US CHOICE OF MAD COW TEST QUESTIONED
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 00:53:39 +0100
From: Moser Markus
Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy To: BSE-L@uni-karlsruhe.de


######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #########


Regarding your question about Canada's BSE-test choice for their official BSE surveillance, I can confirm that they chose the Prionics-Check Western rapid test. Regards Markus


-------- Original Message --------


Subject: Re: US CHOICE OF MAD COW TEST QUESTIONED Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 01:11:04 +0100 From: Roland Heynkes Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:BSE-L@uni-karlsruhe.de


######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #########


Dear Terry,

odd that the USDA et al approves two US-OWNED tests that are _known_ to give false positives, when they know other rapid TSE test are much more reliable.

the BioRad-test seems to be the most sensitive rapid BSE test and it is clear that you "get" false positive results when you try to confirm its results with a less sensitive method like immune histochemistry. Poorly trained technicians of course may produce some false positives with the BioRad-test, but immune histochemistry produces many false negatives especially in the hands of not very experienced people. Generally the false negative and not the much fewer false positive results are the problem of all actually available BSE tests.

It is therefore not so easy to say, if the BioRad-test produced a false positive or if the confirming test produced a false negative result and which of them is more reliable. I for sure would not eat the meat of a cow which was seemingly false positive tested with the BioRad-test.

IT's like they purposely do not want to find any TSE in the USA bovine, so they pick the worst test available.

The BioRad-test is definitively not the worst test available (have a look on the EU results) and when a government does not want to get positive results, it uses immune histochemistry instead.

The USDA own experts think BioRad is not suitable for supposedly BSE/TSE free and low incidence areas, so why did they choose this test and or the IDEXX, which i dont think has even been submitted to the EU for evaluation and has no commercial experiance to my knowledge.

Are you sure that USDA has experts for BSE testing?

You could almost get the feeling they are deliberately skipping over Prionics for the least supperior TSE rapid test. I believe the Canadians finally did choose prionics. maybe paul or marcus might comment?

The Prionics western blot test is also a good rapid test which of course does not produce false positive results. In addition this test allows to see new variants of BSE, which would not be seen with the BioRad. But at least in Europe its positive results become confirmed by the OIE Western blot exactly as the BioRad results. Because of this control step the BioRad test cannot produce significantly more problems.

seems if North America is going to be a consolidated BEEF trading market amongst themselves and expect to export there tainted products everywhere, they could at least come up with the same TSE rapid Test. how can one use a less reliable test and the other use a more reliable test, and it all be the same? i know there is a word Dehaven used, but it slips my mind now, (consolidated markets) that's not it, but you get the just of my thoughts, i think;-)...TSS

Not the minor differences between the rapid tests are the problem, but the much to low testing numbers and the prefered IHC-testing in the USA. In Germany we test every month as many as the USA is going to test per year (mostly with BioRad) - and we have only 13 million cattle.

kind regards

Roland


########### http://mailhost.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/warc/bse-l.html ############


-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: US CHOICE OF MAD COW TEST QUESTIONED
Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 02:51:09 +0100
From: Moser Markus
Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy To: BSE-L@uni-karlsruhe.de


######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #########


Dear Roland

Immunohistochemistry, correctly executed, is the gold standard, together with the OIE Western blotting method. It allows detection of infection even in cases where prion aggregates can only be detected in few individual cells. It is certainly not less sensitive than either Bio-Rad or Prionics. In fact, the abundant data on all three methods indicate equal diagnostic sensitivity (if sampling is done appropriate: note that immunohistochemistry has to be conducted on different tissue samples, since the tissue has to be formalin fixed). In case a BSE case obtained with a rapid test cannot be confirmed in a first approach with one of the gold standard methods, the second method will be used. I agree, that the sensitivity of immunohistochemistry can be negatively influenced e.g. by only looking at a limited number of slides or by not carefully examining the slides for prion aggregates. However, if a rapid test is not confirmed by immunohistochemistry due to a sloppy analysis, it will still show up in the OIE Western blot. Nevertheless, it is of course possible, that a true positive result cannot be confirmed e.g. if only the tissue sample used for the initial testing contained prion aggregates, which is theoretically possible, since the aggregates are not evenly distributed in the tissue. This is why it is not formally possible to disproof with 100% certainty an initial positive diagnosis (and you are right: it's certainly wise to rather not eat any suspicious animals). Nevertheless, false positives cannot in general be attributed to faulty confirmatory tests, but to the fact that the ELISA method simply produces a certain rate of false positives, which is why we offer rapid BSE tests on both platforms, the ELISA and the Western technology. And we make it clear to our customers, that when choosing the Prionics-Check LIA (the ELISA based test) coping with occasional false positive results will be inevitable. The LIA is therefore mostly used in European countries, with well established levels of BSE, while the Prionics-Check Western is also used in BSE-free countries (where a maximum positive predictive value is important to support the conclusion of low frequency or absence of BSE, which would otherwise be difficult for the reason you indicated and I mentioned above, i.e. due to the reason that it is hard to formally disprove an initial diagnosis with absolute certainty).

Regards, Markus



-------- Original Message --------



Subject: Re: ''INCONCLUSIVE'' IS NEGATIVE or so they claim...OFFICIAL REPORT
Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 16:59:27 -0600
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:BSE-L@LISTSERV.KALIV.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE References: <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:41A3B789.6080907@wt.net> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:41A4ED7C.4090501@wt.net>


##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################


-------- Original Message --------


Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW from TEXAS ??? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 21:07:51 -0600 From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." To: Carla Everett References: <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:419E14E2.5040104@wt.net> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:6.0.0.22.2.20041119113601.02682730@tahc.state.tx.us> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:41A2724F.3000901@wt.net> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:6.0.0.22.2.20041122174504.02796d38@tahc.state.tx.us> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:41A27EBC.4050700@wt.net> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:6.0.0.22.2.20041122183204.02801d88@tahc.state.tx.us>

ok, thank you Carla. i hate rumors and 'inconclusive' announcements.

kind regards, terry

Carla Everett wrote: > our computer department was working on a place holder we could post

USDA's announcement of any results. There are no results to be

announced tonight

by NVSL, so we are back in a waiting mode and will post the USDA

announcement > when we hear something.

At 06:05 PM 11/22/2004, you wrote:

why was the announcement on your TAHC site removed?

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy:

November 22: Press Release title here

star image More BSE information

terry

Carla Everett wrote: no confirmation on the U.S.' inconclusive test...

no confirmation on location of animal. I still want my Texas mad cows confirmed BY WB! TSS

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW from TEXAS ??? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 21:07:51 -0600 From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." To: Carla Everett References: <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:419E14E2.5040104@wt.net> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:6.0.0.22.2.20041119113601.02682730@tahc.state.tx.us> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:41A2724F.3000901@wt.net> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:6.0.0.22.2.20041122174504.02796d38@tahc.state.tx.us> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:41A27EBC.4050700@wt.net> <mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:6.0.0.22.2.20041122183204.02801d88@tahc.state.tx.us>

ok, thank you Carla. i hate rumors and 'inconclusive' announcements.

kind regards, terry

Carla Everett wrote:

our computer department was working on a place holder we could post USDA's announcement of any results. There are no results to be announced tonight by NVSL, so we are back in a waiting mode and will post the USDA announcement when we hear something.

At 06:05 PM 11/22/2004, you wrote:

why was the announcement on your TAHC site removed?

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy: November 22: Press Release title here star image More BSE information

terry

Carla Everett wrote:

no confirmation on the U.S.' inconclusive test... no confirmation on location of animal.

I still want my Texas mad cows confirmed BY WB!

TSS

Terry S. Singeltary Sr. wrote:

##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################

Greetings list members,

I find this very very disturbing. IN fact i will say that if the USDA/APHIS do not get a second opinion from the experts overseas, I would say that there is a cover-up. WE now know that they are willing to do anything to cover-up BSE in the USA by what they did with the other stumbling and staggering cow they refused to TSE test and sent to the render in TEXAS. IN fact I am hearing from International experts on TSE that they do NOT buy the latest USDAs test result. why should they? Seems they did not even do a western blot from what i was told. They run two rapid test that turn up positive, but the USDA finds that to be inconclusive. They also said they would not be telling us of any 'inconclusive', but they did. SO, why was it announced? I will tell you why, because the likelihood of it being positive was very high. Even the CEO of BioRAD and Prionics said this. IN fact, USDA has never said they would run 2 IHC, so again, why did they this time? I will tell you why, they wanted a negative so bad, they would test the samples until they found a portion of the brain/tissue sample that would not show a positive. THIS REEKs of industry/political manipulation. I cannot believe that our foreign alies/exporting countries (if there is any left), continue to risk there people through the lies from this administration. why won't USDA et al send samples for independent examinations if they are still having such a hard time with this? what do they have to hide? IF both the TSE laboratory in Waybride, England and the University of Bern, Switzerland (OIE Reference Laboratory) dont get a sample of this tissue from this cow to give second opinions, then in my opinion that cow was positive. Hell, we get official slides of Japan's infected samples to survey. but in the USA, it's all closed doors now and they will test the damn animal as many times as it takes to get a negative. total bull sh!t encephalopathy this is, what i call BSeee, politics at it's finest hour. when will it all end$

IF we look at the original U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary i posted in 1999, it states very clearly;

If additional tests do suggest a presumptive diagnosis of BSE, an NVSL pathologist will hand carry the sample to the United Kingdom for confirmation. It is at this critical point, when NVSL suggests a diagnosis of BSE and is preparing to send the sample to the United Kingdom, that this BSE Response Plan is initiated. The Plan begins the preliminary notification from NVSL to APHIS...

snip...end

BUT this administration has clearly shown they have no rules and regulations, they change them with the wind to suit there needs$

for full text,

ORIGINAL POSTING;

Subject: U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 18:25:12 -0500 From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." Reply-To: BSE-L To: BSE-L

IT'S IN THE ARCHIVES at BSE-L...TSS

Terry S. Singeltary Sr. wrote:

##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################

At 09:44 AM 11/19/2004, you wrote: Greetings Carla,

i am getting unsubstantiated claims of this BSE 'inconclusive' cow is from TEXAS. can you comment on this either way please?

thank you, Terry S. Singeltary Sr.

-------- Original Message --------


Subject: US CHOICE OF MAD COW TEST QUESTIONED
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2004 16:12:06 -0600
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:BSE-L@uni-karlsruhe.de

######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #########

US CHOICE OF MAD COW TEST QUESTIONED

The US plans to measure the incidence of mad cow disease in its cattle with a test that its own officials have said gives too many false positives. Some experts fear the choice reflects an official desire to downplay the impact of the first positive BSE tests that emerge, when they turn out not to be confirmed.

Last week the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) approved two tests, including one made by the Californian firm BioRad, for screening up to 300,000 cattle for BSE, starting in July. No more tests will be licensed for months. Announcing the testing plan, chief veterinary officer Ron DeHaven cautioned that "there will be positive results", many of them false.

BioRad's antibody-based test for the prion protein that causes BSE has given numerous false positives in Belgium and Germany. And in Japan only 8 of 113 cattle that repeatedly tested positive with BioRad were confirmed by slower tests that do not give false positives.

The USDA even wrote last May that "it is well known" that tests like BioRad's give false positives. It states that other kinds of quick tests are more suitable for testing for very low levels of BSE, which are expected in the US.

The second quick test approved by the USDA, made by Maine-based IDEXX, could also in theory give false positives. It remains unclear how reliable it is, because there has been little practical experience with the test so far. It is not yet approved for use in Europe, where the vast majority of BSE tests are done.

Debora MacKenzie, Brussels correspondent, New Scientist. tel +32-2-245-0412 fax +32-2-245-0552 mobile +32-49-754-0444

http://www.newscientist.com/


=======================



Greetings,

odd that the USDA et al approves two US-OWNED tests that are _known_ to give false positives, when they know other rapid TSE test are much more reliable. IT's like they purposely do not want to find any TSE in the USA bovine, so they pick the worst test available. The USDA own experts think BioRad is not suitable for supposedly BSE/TSE free and low incidence areas, so why did they choose this test and or the IDEXX, which i dont think has even been submitted to the EU for evaluation and has no commercial experiance to my knowledge. You could almost get the feeling they are deliberately skipping over Prionics for the least supperior TSE rapid test. I believe the Canadians finally did choose prionics. maybe paul or marcus might comment? seems if North America is going to be a consolidated BEEF trading market amongst themselves and expect to export there tainted products everywhere, they could at least come up with the same TSE rapid Test. how can one use a less reliable test and the other use a more reliable test, and it all be the same? i know there is a word Dehaven used, but it slips my mind now, (consolidated markets) that's not it, but you get the just of my thoughts, i think;-)...TSS

----- Original Message -----

From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
To:
Sent: Wednesday, June 30, 2004 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: [BSE-L] FIRE UP THE PIT, THE FIRST BSE POSITIVE INCONCLUSIVE IS NEGATIVE

######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy > > #########



A New Prionopathy OR more of the same old BSe and sporadic CJD




http://creutzfeldt-jakob-disease.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-prionopathy-or-more-of-same-old-bse.html




http://madcowusda.blogspot.com/2007_10_01_archive.html





-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Q&A Dr. Jean-Philippe Deslys USDA REFUSAL TO USE WB ON TEXAS COW WITH BSE SYMPTOMS (FULL TEXT)
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 11:53:47 -0500
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:BSE-L@LISTS.UNI-KARLSRUHE.DE

##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################

Q&A Dr. Jean-Philippe Deslys

1. What is the standard regime for testing of suspect animals in the EU?

The regime is an initial screening by a high-output test, the Bio-Rad test. If a result raises suspicion, a confirmatory test is conducted with the Western blot test.

2. How long has this been the case?

Its a fairly recent development. Only recently has the Western blot test become sensitive enough, with the addition of phospohtungstic acid precipitation step. The Bio-Rad test (which Deslys helped develop) is extremely sensitive, and the standard Western blot is extremely reliable with high-signal test results. However, it had to be made more sensitive for low-signal (samples with low density of malformed prions) samples. It has been made more sensitive.

Reproducibility is the problem with the IHC test. It is not standardized; depending on the lab and its protocols, or even on the technician involved in the test, one can get conflicting results.

3. Is there a way to measure the three tests in sensitivity, accuracy and objectivity?

Historically, yes. The IHC was the gold standard at one point, but we have shifted to the Western blot. It requires less work, it is more sensitive and its results are reproducible. IHC relies on localization. If you have a weak signal case, you may get lucky and test a spot with a high concentration of prions. But the opposite it true too; you can miss an infection by testing a sample with low concentrations. Western blot is much better for low signal situations.

4. The USDA in 2003 used the Western blot to confirm the BSE case in Washington state, and it sent samples to the U.K. for independent testing. In the case this November, which it announced was negative, it instead used the IHC test and did not send samples to the U.K. Is this good science?

Its not logical. If you have two consecutive questionable screenings, you do another test. I can only advise, its managements duty at USDA to make the decisions. But when you have a discrepancy between the rapid test and the IHC, it is only logical to confirm it with another test.

5. We are hearing now about a new strain of BSE, atypical BSE or aBSE. Or BaSE. We have heard that IHC, the so-called gold standard, cannot detect the variant. Is this true?

Yes. There have been a few cases, one in Italy, one in Belgium, one here in France. It seems to only affect very old animals. The distribution in the brain is very different than we see with BSE, it looks very different. The IHC test will come back negative.

This his a very recent phenomenon. I have no opinion on its virulence. We do not know where it comes from. It could be a version of sporadic infection. Western blot caught them, but we would not even know it existed if we werent running systematic testing in the EU.

BSE was around for a long time before we caught it and by then, it was everywhere. It had become highly infectious. It probably amplified due to low-temperature rendering. The disease was recycled through the food chain, and was given time to amplify. By the time it was identified, even good cooking couldnt eliminate it.

I cant stress enough that systematic testing is necessary. Withdrawing all positives from the food chain is the best way to break the cycle.

What can happen with testing of only cattle that are clearly at risk is that several can remain undetected. Canada has tested about 30,000 head of cattle and has three positives. That would indicate that there are probably undiscovered cases. And what happens then is that the disease is allowed to amplify. You have to maintain testing.

When people choose to protect their economic interests over public health, it can have a boomerang effect. It happened all through Europe. They always deny; its not OUR problem, it is our neighbors problem. And then a single case is discovered and the public reacts. The economic results are devastating. It would be better to just assume BSE is present and use systematic testing as protection. That way, the public is reassured that it is not entering the food supply.

By systematic testing, I mean doing as we do in the EU, which is to test every animal over 30 months of age when it is slaughtered. In Europe, three times as many cases of BSE have been caught by systematic testing as by clinical testing (of clearly sick animals). In 2004, eight clinical cases were discovered, 29 were discovered at rendering plants, and 17 at slaughter. We should be using these tests as a weapon to protect the public and to give them assurance that the food supply is being protected.

6. USDAs list of specified risk materials excludes some products, like blood and bone meal, that are banned in the EU and UK. Is our feed supply safe?

With SRMs, where do you stop? Tests have found prions in meat, nerves travel through meat, and so on. The main infectivity is in the brain and the spinal cord. A blood and bone meal ban in animal feed is not really necessary, because except in cases of highly infective animals, it is unlikely that they are dangerous in themselves. If you combine systematic testing and targeted SRM removal, the brain and the spinal column in cattle over 30 months, you can have a compromise that is both safer and less costly than expanded feed bans.

Certainly, you can stop the spread of BSE with a total ban on offal. But it has to be a total ban. It cant be given to sheep or swine or poultry. It would be very expensive and virtually impossible to accomplish. You can have farmers using the wrong feed or transportation errors.

Systematic testing makes far more sense. I think of it as a thermometer. It not only allows us to catch the disease, it also allows us to monitor its progress. We can watch the levels of infectivity and if they start going up instead of down, we can take measures.

To an extent, our environment is contaminated. About 10 percent of wild animals test positive for TSEs. If you recycle these agents, they can evolve and get more dangerous. This is probably what happened with BSE. It wasnt very dangerous until it evolved to the disease we know today.

People complain that testing is very expensive. It is much more expensive to kill and test whole herds.

7. In your opinion, is infected feed the sole method of transmission of BSE, apart from the very rare maternal transmission?

Feed is the main problem. However, we are seeing some other possibilities, including through fat and greases. Calves are fed milk extracts, with the cream removed. To make it nutritious, they are using fat and grease from cattle.

(FOLLOW QUESTION: Would that allow BSE to develop into an infective level in cattle younger than 30 months, assuming they might be getting infected at a younger age?)

8. You were involved in a study that tested two primates who were fed infected brain tissue. One eventually died of TSE; the other survived. The press reported that the main finding was that it would take something on the order of 1.5 kilograms of infected matter to create an infection, but that seems to be an oversimplification. Could you explain it further?

The findings suggest that as little as five grams is enough to infect. The 1.5 kilo figure is the amount of infected tissue that would have to be ingested from an animal that would be below the threshold of infection, and would test negative. In other words, even though a younger animal may be developing the disease, it would take a considerable amount of tissue to transmit the disease.

An animal could be just below the testing level, and not be particularly dangerous. But that is why you have to keep testing. Once it reaches the threshold, it can become highly infective.

9. BSE is a pretty horrifying disease, but overall, it has killed less than 200 humans, and only a handful in recent years. Listeria, by comparison, kills thousands every year. Overall, how do you rate the threat from BSE?

The overall risk is not particularly high. Over two million infected animals went into the food chain in Europe, 400,000 of them before the SRMs, the brains and spinal column, were removed from the carcass. Less than 200 died, and less than 4,000 are at risk of developing the disease. What we know now is that one particle is not going to kill you. There has to be condensation of the prions to be truly dangerous.

This is not a sterile world. But the danger is that now that the crisis appears to be over, attention will turn elsewhere and that will allow the disease to amplify again. Just as we stopped paying attention to AIDS when medication seemed to control it, then were surprised when a new and more infectious and aggressive strain appeared, we could be surprised by a more serious strain of BSE. That is why I support systematic testing for the long term. The object is to keep levels of BSE low, and to recognize the danger if it suddenly pops back up. ...END

TSS



######### https://listserv.kaliv.uni-karlsruhe.de/warc/bse-l.html ##########



SEE ATTEMPTED COVER-UP BEFORE THE END AROUND BY FONG ET AL OF THE O.I.G

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed June 29 that genetic testing had verified bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in a 12-year-old cow that was born and raised in a Texas beef cattle herd.

Subsequent epidemiological investigations resulted in the culling and testing of 67 adult animals from the index herd. Bio-Rad tests for BSE were conducted on all 67 animals by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa. All tests were negative.

On July 12, Texas officials lifted the quarantine on the source herd. At press time, USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was tracing animals of the same age that had left the ranch.

Timeline

The BSE-positive animal was a Brahman-cross cow born and raised in a single Texas herd. The location of the ranch was not disclosed.

On Nov. 11, 2004, the 12-year-old cow was taken to a Texas auction market. Because of its condition, the cow was sent to Champion Pet Foods in Waco, Texas. The company produces several blends of dog food, primarily for the greyhound industry.

On Nov. 15, the animal arrived dead at Champion. Under procedures established by USDA's intensive surveillance program, a sample was sent to the USDA-approved Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Testing Laboratory (TVMDL) at Texas A&M University.

Between June 1, 2004, and June 1, 2005, TVMDL tested nearly 34,000 samples from Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana. They tested the sample from Champion on Nov. 19 using a Bio-Rad ELISA rapid test for BSE. Initial results were inconclusive.

Because of the inconclusive results, a representative from USDA took the entire carcass to TVMDL where it was incinerated. USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) began tracing the animal and herd.

The sample was then sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory for further testing. Two Immunohistochemistry (IHC) tests were conducted and both were negative for BSE. At that point APHIS stopped their trace.

USDA scientists also ran an additional, experimental IHC "rapid" tissue fixation test for academic purposes. This test has not been approved internationally.

Some abnormalities were noted in the experimental test, but because the two approved tests came back negative, the results were not reported beyond the laboratory.

Monitoring by OIG

USDA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has been monitoring implementation of the BSE expanded surveillance program and evaluating the following:

* Effectiveness of the surveillance program;

* Performance of BSE laboratories in complying with policies and procedures for conducting tests and reporting results;

* Enforcement of the ban on specified risk materials in meat products;

* Controls to prevent central nervous system tissue in advanced meat recovery products;

* Ante mortem condemnation procedures; and

* Procedures for obtaining brain tissue samples from condemned cattle.

While reviewing voluminous records, OIG auditors noticed conflicting test results on one sample-rapid inconclusive, IHC negative, experimental reactive.

Sample retested

At the recommendation of the Inspector General, the sample was retested during the week of June 5 with a second confirmatory test, the Western Blot. The results were reactive.

USDA scientists then conducted an additional IHC confirmatory test, using different antibodies from the November 2004 test. On Friday, June 10, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns publicly announced the results as a "weak positive."

On June 16 an official with USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory hand-carried samples for further testing to the Veterinary Laboratory Agency (VLA) in Weybridge, England. Since 1991, the VLA has been a BSE reference laboratory for the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Experts from the Weybridge lab confirmed the accuracy of the results of USDA's November confirmatory IHC test, concurring that the case could not have been confirmed on the basis of this sample. They also examined the November experimental IHC test and interpreted the results to be positive.

Weybridge also conducted additional tests, including IHC, OIE-prescribed Western Blot, NaTTA Western Blot and Prionics Western Blot tests.

To better understand the conflicting results, USDA also conducted Bio-Rad and IDEXX rapid screening tests, IHC and OIE-prescribed Western Blot. USDA also used DNA sequencing to determine the prion protein gene sequence of the animal.



http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5420/is_200508/ai_n21377094



Texas even had a 'secret' test that showed that mad cow positive; experimental IHC test results, because the test was not a validated procedure, and because the two approved IHC tests came back negative, the results were not considered to be of regulatory significance and therefore were not reported beyond the laboratory. . A Western blot test conducted the week of June 5, 2005, returned positive for BSE.




http://www.usda.gov/documents/vs_bse_ihctestvar.pdf




48 hr BSE confirmation turnaround took 7+ months to confirm this case, so the BSE MRR policy could be put into place. ...TSS



PLEASE SEE ;

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary and BSE Red Book Date: February 14, 2000 at 8:56 am PST

WHERE did we go wrong $$$




http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/07/us-emergency-bovine-spongiform.html




TSS TO O.I.G. ;




-------- Original Message --------


Subject: re-USDA's surveillance plan for BSE aka mad cow disease

Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 16:59:07 -0500

From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."

To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000505/!x-usc:mailto:paffairs@oig.hhs.gov, mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000505/!x-usc:mailto:HHSTips@oig.hhs.gov, mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000553/!x-usc:mailto:contactOIG@hhsc.state.tx.us


Greetings Honorable Paul Feeney, Keith Arnold, and William Busbyet al at OIG, ...............


snip...


There will be several more emails of my research to follow. I respectfully request a full inquiry into the cover-up of TSEs in the United States of America over the past 30 years. I would be happy to testify...


Thank you, I am sincerely, Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518 xxx xxx xxxx

Date: June 14, 2005 at 1:46 pm PST In Reply to: Re: Transcript Ag. Secretary Mike Johanns and Dr. John Clifford, Regarding further analysis of BSE Inconclusive Test Results posted by TSS on June 13, 2005 at 7:33 pm:

Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman resigns Nov 15 2004, three days later inclusive Mad Cow is announced. June 7th 2005 Bill Hawks Under Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs resigns. Three days later same mad cow found in November turns out to be positive. Both resignation are unexpected. just pondering... TSS

MAD COW IN TEXAS NOVEMBER 2004. ...TSS


-------- Original Message --------


Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW fromTEXAS ???

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:12:15 -0600

From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."

To: Carla EverettReferences: <[log in to unmask]><[log in to unmask] us>

Greetings Carla, still hear a rumor;

Texas single beef cow not born in Canada no beef entered the food chain?

and i see the TEXAS department of animal health is ramping up for something, but they forgot a url for update?

I HAVE NO ACTUAL CONFIRMATION YET...

can you confirm??? terry


============================================================


-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW from TEXAS ???

Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:38:21 -0600

From: Carla Everett

To: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."References: <[log in to unmask]>

The USDA has made a statement, and we are referring all callers to the USDA web site. We have no information about the animal being in Texas.

Carla

At 09:44 AM 11/19/2004, you wrote:

Greetings Carla,

i am getting unsubstantiated claims of this BSE 'inconclusive' cow is from

TEXAS. can you comment on this either way please?

thank you,

Terry S. Singeltary Sr.>>


======================================


-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW from TEXAS ???

Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:33:20 -0600

From: Carla Everett

To: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."References: <[log in to unmask]><[log in to unmask] us><[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]us> <[log in to unmask]>

our computer department was working on a place holder we could post USDA's announcement of any results. There are no results to be announced tonight by NVSL, so we are back in a waiting mode and will post the USDA announcement when we hear something.

At 06:05 PM 11/22/2004,

you wrote:

why was the announcement on your TAHC site removed?

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy:

November 22: Press Release title here

star image More BSE information

terry

Carla Everett wrote:

no confirmation on the U.S.'inconclusive test...

no confirmation on location of animal.>>>>>>




http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/




WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER TEXAS MAD COW THAT WAS CONVENIENTLY A COVER-UP AS WELL, BUT THEY SUCCEEDED IN THIS COVER-UP ???

snip...see ;




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/08/bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy-mad.html




UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOOD SAFETY AND INSPECTION SERVICE WASHINGTON, DC

08-07

2/2/2007

FSIS NOTICE

SAMPLE COLLECTION FROM CATTLE UNDER THE BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE) ONGOING SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM

I. PURPOSE

This notice provides the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspection program personnel with instructions regarding the collection of brain samples for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's (APHIS) Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) ongoing surveillance plan. This notice cancels FSIS Notice 51-06, Sample Collection from Cattle under the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Ongoing Surveillance Program, and FSIS Notice 52-06, Temporary Suspension of Provision in the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Ongoing Surveillance Program. FSIS has incorporated the pertinent information from the cancelled notices into this notice. This revised notice is a result of changes APHIS has made to its surveillance plan.

II. DEFINITION OF NEW COLLECTION PROCEDURES

A. Approved Alternative Off-Site Sample Collection

1. APHIS will provide for the collection of brain (obex) samples from an allocated number of cattle 30 months and older condemned for any reason on ante-mortem inspection, and from cattle of any age displaying Central Nervous System (CNS) symptoms, at federally-inspected slaughter establishments that have agreements with APHIS under the approved alternative off-site sample collection program. 2. At such establishments, FSIS inspection program personnel will not collect brain samples. They will provide the following to plant management: a. condemn tag (Z-tag) numbers (not the Z-tag itself); and

b. disposition information (i.e., the reason for condemnation under 9 CFR Part 309).

DISTRIBUTION: Inspection Offices;

NOTICE EXPIRES: 3/1/08

OPI: OPPED

T/A Inspectors; TSC; Import Offices

B. Brain Sample Collection of Cattle Displaying CNS Symptoms

1. At Federally-inspected establishments not under the approved alternative off-site sample collection program, FSIS Public Health Veterinarians (PHVs):

a. will collect appropriate BSE samples from cattle of all ages that display CNS symptoms, or b. will not collect the samples for BSE testing if the slaughter establishment has made or plans to make arrangements with APHIS, whereby the samples from cattle condemned for CNS symptoms will be collected at a location other than on the official plant premises. NOTE: Certain Alternative Off-Site Agreements that were in place during Enhanced Surveillance may no longer be in effect and establishments will need to initiate new agreements with APHIS and potential collectors.

III. FSIS PERSONNEL RESPONSIBILITIES A. Upon receipt of this notice, the FSIS PHV is to hold an awareness meeting with the establishment. At this meeting, the FSIS PHV should ask the management whether: 1. it is under APHIS' approved alternative off-site sample collection program for collecting allocated samples (paragraph II. A.); and

2. if not, whether:

a. FSIS is to collect brain samples from cattle displaying CNS symptoms (paragraph II. B. 1.a.); or b. the establishment needs time to engage in making arrangements with APHIS for the off-site brain sample collection of such cattle (paragraph II. B. 1. b.). B. If during the awareness meeting establishment management states that it plans to work with APHIS to begin off-site sampling, until APHIS approves that arrangement, or until FSIS is advised that an off-site agreement will not be forthcoming, FSIS PHVs are to: 1. identify all CNS animals condemned on ante-mortem with a "U. S. Condemned" tag; 2. contact the APHIS Area Veterinarian-In-Charge (AVIC) so the AVIC can collect the brain sample; 3. ensure that the animals are humanely euthanized, unless APHIS requests otherwise; and 2

FSIS NOTICE 08-07 4. not allow them to move off the premise of the establishment, unless APHIS requests otherwise. C. In a memorandum of interview (MOI), the FSIS PHV is to document who was present at the awareness meeting, the date and time of the meeting, how the establishment plans to proceed based on the choices set out in A. above, and any documents shared with management.

D. If the establishment plans to work with APHIS to begin off-site sampling, the FSIS PHV is to update the MOI as to whether an agreement was reached and in general, what the agreement was.

E. The FSIS PHV is to maintain a copy of the memorandum of interview in the official government file, provide a copy to the plant management, and electronically mail a copy to the APHIS AVIC as changes occur.

IV. FSIS RESPONSIBILITIES RELATED TO APPROVED ALTERNATIVE OFFSITE SAMPLE COLLECTION A. The FSIS PHV is to complete the condemnation form, FSIS Form 6000-13 (Certification of Ante-mortem or Post-mortem Disposition of Tagged Animals) and FSIS Form 6150-1 (Identification Tag - Ante-mortem). The FSIS PHV should pay special attention when providing a full description of the reason for the condemnation on FSIS Form 6000-13 and fill out fully FSIS Form 6150-1. B. Incoming animal identification, except the Z-tag, should be left on these animals since it will be needed at the approved alternative off-site collection location to fill out collection forms. Z-tags will be removed prior to any carcasses leaving the official establishment. NOTE: Information supplied to plant management to take to the approved alternative off-site collection sites needs to be complete and accurate. FSIS PHVs need to provide a full description of the reason for the condemnation on FSIS Form 6000-13, APHIS will use this information to triage which condemned animals are sampled.

V. FSIS SAMPLE COLLECTION FOR CATTLE DISPLAYING CNS SYMPTOMS

A. If the establishment does not have an agreement with APHIS for off-site sampling of cattle with CNS symptoms, the FSIS PHV will collect the brain samples from cattle showing signs of CNS symptoms. The FSIS PHV is to make all final disposition decisions regarding whether to condemn cattle in accordance with 9 CFR part 309.

NOTE: FSIS PHVs can also find information regarding BSE sampling (e.g., forms, sampling supply information) at:

Public Folders/All Public Folders/OFO/Technical Service Center/BSE Training Info

3

B. The FSIS PHV, or the establishment under the supervision of the FSIS PHV, should promptly remove the head in order to collect the brain sample. If the establishment does not arrange to remove the head, the FSIS PHV may need to collect the brain sample as a priority over other ante-mortem or post-mortem procedures.

C. The FSIS PHV should collect the brain sample either in the inedible area of the establishment or in another area set aside for such collection to prevent the creation of an insanitary condition. Establishment personnel and FSIS inspection program personnel are to take proper sanitary measures before returning to edible areas of the establishment after brain sample collection, in accordance with 9 CFR 416.5.

D. In situations where the FSIS PHV has missed the last FedEx pick-up for the day, or the FSIS PHV collected the sample on a day when FedEx does not pick up, the PHV is to refrigerate the samples until the next available FedEx pick-up day. Remember, the sample is not to pass through or to be stored in areas of the establishment where the establishment produces edible product. The FSIS PHV is to maintain the sample's chain-of-custody.

E. The FSIS PHV is to verify the collection, documentation, and control of all animal identification associated with cattle condemned during ante-mortem inspection that are to be sampled by FSIS. The FSIS PHV is to attach the "U. S. Condemned" tag to cattle condemned during ante-mortem inspection in accordance with 9 CFR 309.13. This documentation will facilitate traceback in the event that the sample result is positive for BSE. The documentation should include records in accordance with 9 CFR 320.1.

F. The FSIS PHV is to verify that the presence of condemned cattle or parts does not create insanitary conditions (9 CFR part 416). The establishment is responsible for the disposal of the condemned cattle in accordance with 9 CFR part

314. The FSIS PHV also is to verify that the establishment maintains records regarding the disposal of the condemned cattle in accordance with 9 CFR 320.1.

G. Inspection program personnel may inform the establishment that it may choose to hold the carcass and parts until testing results are available. If the establishment chooses to dispose of any carcass or parts before it receives test results, inspection program personnel are to advise the establishment that it must dispose of the carcass in one of the following ways:

1. render it at a facility for non-animal feed use (e.g., biofuel or cement); 2. alkaline digestion; 3. incineration; or 4. lined land fills. H. Documentation for Cattle Showing Signs of CNS Symptoms

1. For locations without high-speed internet connections, the FSIS PHV is to forward the completed BSE Surveillance Information System (BSE-SIS) sample

4

FSIS NOTICE 08-07

collection sheets to the APHIS,VS office by FAX or by e-mail. The follow site lists the VS office FAX numbers and e-mail where available:




http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/area_offices.htm




The APHIS AVIC in each area office may assist with sample delivery verification and troubleshooting. The FSIS PHV can get copies of BSE-SIS forms by contacting the local APHIS office.

2. The FSIS PHV is to enter the relevant information into the BSE-SIS at locations with high-speed connections and proceed as instructed in the training materials. FSIS PHVs may get the training from AgLearn or may contact the District Office if they need a copy of the BSE Surveillance Information System (BSE-SIS) training CD and for assistance in getting permission to have access to BSE-SIS.

VI. TEST RESULTS FOR FSIS SAMPLING FROM CATTLE SHOWING CNS SYMPTOMS

The FSIS PHV will receive, by e-mail, a report from the AVIC on the BSE test results. The AVIC will also send copies of the results to the District Office.

1. If the test is negative (reported as "not detected"), any carcasses and parts the establishment has held may be released for rendering or other disposal in accordance with 9 CFR 314. 2. If the test is inconclusive, the FSIS PHV will receive supervisory instruction on further actions. 3. For any sample confirmed positive for BSE, the FSIS PHV is to verify that the establishment disposes of the carcasses and parts in the proper manner as set out in paragraph V. G. VII. eADRS PROCEDURES FOR FSIS SAMPLING FROM CATTLE SHOWING CNS SYMPTOMS

After sampling cattle showing signs of CNS symptoms, the FSIS PHV (or designee) is to enter the relevant information for each sample into eADRS.

1. The FSIS PHV (or designee) is to enter each ante-mortem condemned animal in eADRS under the applicable pathological condition. 2. For each relevant disease condition, in the "Add Daily Totals" window, the FSIS PHV is to select the "Update BSE Details" button if FSIS sampled one or more of the condemned animals for BSE. Selecting this button opens the "Update BSE Details" screen. 3. On the "Update BSE Details" screen, the FSIS PHV is to enter the number of

5

animals sampled and the applicable "U.S. Condemned" Z-tag number for each sampled

animal.

4. After entering the relevant information, the FSIS PHV is to click the "Save" button and proceed to the next disease condition.

For additional information on entering BSE sample information, refer to Section 7 of the eADRS User Guide.

VIII. RABIES

In a rare situation, such as when an animal is condemned by the FSIS PHV on antemortem for rabies, the FSIS PHV should contact their District Office, who will advise APHIS. In these cases, APHIS will see that the animal is tested for rabies. APHIS will work with the laboratory to get appropriate samples forwarded for BSE surveillance from rabies negative animals.

Rabies vaccination of FSIS collectors is still highly recommended. The voluntary rabies vaccination program details are covered in FSIS Notice 29-04, Questions and Answers for FSIS Notice 28-04 Regarding Ante-Mortem Condemned Cattle.

Refer questions to the Technical Assistance and Correlation Division, Technical Service Center, at 1-800-233-3935.

Assistant Administrator Office of Policy, Program, and Employee Development

6




http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISNotices/08-07.pdf




FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Statement May 4, 2004 Media Inquiries: 301-827-6242 Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA

Statement on Texas Cow With Central Nervous System Symptoms On Friday, April 30 th , the Food and Drug Administration learned that a cow with central nervous system symptoms had been killed and shipped to a processor for rendering into animal protein for use in animal feed.

FDA, which is responsible for the safety of animal feed, immediately began an investigation. On Friday and throughout the weekend, FDA investigators inspected the slaughterhouse, the rendering facility, the farm where the animal came from, and the processor that initially received the cow from the slaughterhouse.

FDA's investigation showed that the animal in question had already been rendered into "meat and bone meal" (a type of protein animal feed). Over the weekend FDA was able to track down all the implicated material. That material is being held by the firm, which is cooperating fully with FDA.

Cattle with central nervous system symptoms are of particular interest because cattle with bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, also known as "mad cow disease," can exhibit such symptoms. In this case, there is no way now to test for BSE. But even if the cow had BSE, FDA's animal feed rule would prohibit the feeding of its rendered protein to other ruminant animals (e.g., cows, goats, sheep, bison).

FDA is sending a letter to the firm summarizing its findings and informing the firm that FDA will not object to use of this material in swine feed only. If it is not used in swine feed, this material will be destroyed. Pigs have been shown not to be susceptible to BSE. If the firm agrees to use the material for swine feed only, FDA will track the material all the way through the supply chain from the processor to the farm to ensure that the feed is properly monitored and used only as feed for pigs.

To protect the U.S. against BSE, FDA works to keep certain mammalian protein out of animal feed for cattle and other ruminant animals. FDA established its animal feed rule in 1997 after the BSE epidemic in the U.K. showed that the disease spreads by feeding infected ruminant protein to cattle.

Under the current regulation, the material from this Texas cow is not allowed in feed for cattle or other ruminant animals. FDA's action specifying that the material go only into swine feed means also that it will not be fed to poultry.

FDA is committed to protecting the U.S. from BSE and collaborates closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on all BSE issues. The animal feed rule provides crucial protection against the spread of BSE, but it is only one of several such firewalls. FDA will soon be improving the animal feed rule, to make this strong system even stronger.

####




http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/NEW01061.html




TSS REPORT ON 2ND TEJAS MAD COW
Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:12:15 -0600
(the one that did NOT get away, thanks to the Honorable Phyllis Fong)

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW from TEXAS ??? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 17:12:15 -0600 From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." To: Carla Everett References: <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask] us>

Greetings Carla,still hear a rumor;

Texas single beef cow not born in Canada no beef entered the food chain?

and i see the TEXAS department of animal health is ramping up forsomething, but they forgot a url for update?

I HAVE NO ACTUAL CONFIRMATION YET...can you confirm???

terry

==============================

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW from TEXAS ??? Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:38:21 -0600 From: Carla Everett To: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." References: <[log in to unmask]>

The USDA has made a statement, and we are referring all callers to the USDA web site. We have no informationabout the animal being in Texas. CarlaAt 09:44 AM 11/19/2004, you wrote:>Greetings Carla,>>i am getting unsubstantiated claims of this BSE 'inconclusive' cow is from>TEXAS. can you comment on this either way please?>>thank you,>Terry S. Singeltary Sr.>>

===================

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: BSE 'INCONCLUSIVE' COW from TEXAS ??? Date: Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:33:20 -0600 From: Carla Everett To: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." References: <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask] us> <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask] us> <[log in to unmask]>

our computer department was working on a place holder we could postUSDA's announcement of any results. There are no results to be announced tonightby NVSL, so we are back in a waiting mode and will post the USDA announcementwhen we hear something.At 06:05 PM 11/22/2004, you wrote:>why was the announcement on your TAHC site removed?>>Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy:>November 22: Press Release title here >>star image More BSE information>>>>terry>>Carla Everett wrote:>>>no confirmation on the U.S.' inconclusive test...>>no confirmation on location of animal.>>>>>>

========================== ==========================


THEN, 7+ MONTHS OF COVER-UP BY JOHANN ET AL! no doubt about it now $$$

NO, it's not pretty, hell, im not pretty, but these are the facts, take em or leave em, however, you cannot change them.

with kindest regards,

I am still sincerely disgusted and tired in sunny Bacliff, Texas USA 77518

Terry S. Singeltary Sr.

FULL 130 LASHINGS TO USDA BY OIG again




http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/50601-10-KC.pdf




Link: TSS





http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0612&L=sanet-mg&T=0&P=23557





Feb 06, 2004 Washington State Investigation-Final Epidemiology Report





http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse/downloads/WashingtonState_epi_final3-04.pdf





Secretary's Advisory Committee Recommendations

Feb 13, 2004 Secretary's Advisory Committee Report





http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse/downloads/SAC-Report2-13-04.pdf





Feb 02, 2004 International Review Team (IRT) Report





http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse/downloads/US_BSE_Report2-2-04.pdf





Subject: Re: USDA/APHIS JUNE 2004 'ENHANCED' BSE/TSE COVER UP UPDATE DECEMBER 19, 2004 USA
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 12:27:06 -0600
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr.

BSE-L

snip...

OH, i did ask Bio-Rad about this with NO reply to date;

-------- Original Message -------- S

ubject: USA BIO-RADs INCONCLUSIVEs Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:37:28 -0600 From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." To: [log in to unmask]

Hello Susan and Bio-Rad,

Happy Holidays!

I wish to ask a question about Bio-Rad and USDA BSE/TSE testing and there inconclusive. IS the Bio-Rad test for BSE/TSE that complicated, or is there most likely some human error we are seeing here?

HOW can Japan have 2 positive cows with No clinical signs WB+, IHC-, HP- , BUT in the USA, these cows are considered 'negative'?

IS there more politics working here than science in the USA?

What am I missing?

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Re: USDA: More mad cow testing will demonstrate beef's safety Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 09:26:19 -0600 From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." snip...end

Experts doubt USDA's mad cow results

snip...END

WELL, someone did call me from Bio-Rad about this, however it was not Susan Berg. but i had to just about take a blood oath not to reveal there name. IN fact they did not want me to even mention this, but i feel it is much much to important. I have omitted any I.D. of this person, but thought I must document this ;

Bio-Rad, TSS phone conversation 12/28/04

Finally spoke with ;

Bio-Rad Laboratories 2000 Alfred Nobel Drive Hercules, CA 94547 Ph: 510-741-6720 Fax: 510-741-5630 Email: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

at approx. 14:00 hours 12/28/04, I had a very pleasant phone conversation with XXXX XXXXX about the USDA and the inconclusive BSE testing problems they seem to keep having. X was very very cautious as to speak directly about USDA and it's policy of not using WB. X was very concerned as a Bio-Rad official of retaliation of some sort. X would only speak of what other countries do, and that i should take that as an answer. I told X I understood that it was a very loaded question and X agreed several times over and even said a political one.

my question;

Does Bio-Rad believe USDA's final determination of False positive, without WB, and considering the new atypical TSEs not showing positive with -IHC and -HP ???

ask if i was a reporter. i said no, i was with CJD Watch and that i had lost my mother to hvCJD. X did not want any of this recorded or repeated.

again, very nervous, will not answer directly about USDA for fear of retaliation, but again said X tell me what other countries are doing and finding, and that i should take it from there. "very difficult to answer"

"very political"

"very loaded question"

outside USA and Canada, they use many different confirmatory tech. in house WB, SAF, along with IHC, HP, several times etc. you should see at several talks meetings (TSE) of late Paris Dec 2, that IHC- DOES NOT MEAN IT IS NEGATIVE. again, look what the rest of the world is doing. said something about Dr. Houston stating; any screening assay, always a chance for human error. but with so many errors (i am assuming X meant inconclusive), why are there no investigations, just false positives? said something about ''just look at the sheep that tested IHC- but were positive''. ...

TSS

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: Your questions D ate: Mon, 27 Dec 2004 15:58:11 -0800 From: To: [log in to unmask]

Hi Terry:

............................................snip Let me know your phone number so I can talk to you about the Bio-Rad BSE test. Thank you

Regards

Bio-Rad Laboratories 2000 Alfred Nobel Drive Hercules, CA 94547 Ph: 510-741-6720 Fax: 510-741-5630 Email: =================================

snip...end...TSS

[Docket No. 03-025IFA] FSIS Prohibition of the Use of Specified Risk Materials for Human Food and Requirement for the Disposition of Non-Ambulatory Disabled Cattle





http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/03-025IFA/03-025IFA-2.pdf





[Docket No. FSIS-2006-0011] FSIS Harvard Risk Assessment of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)





http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/2006-0011/2006-0011-1.pdf





THE SEVEN SCIENTIST REPORT ***





http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/02n0273/02n-0273-EC244-Attach-1.pdf





PAUL BROWN M.D.





http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/02n0273/02n-0273-c000490-vol40.pdf





9 December 2005 Division of Dockets Management (RFA-305)

SEROLOGICALS CORPORATION James J. Kramer, Ph.D. Vice President, Corporate Operations





http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/02n0273/02n-0273-c000383-01-vol35.pdf





Embassy of Japan





http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/02n0273/02N-0273-EC240.htm





03-025IF 03-025IF-631 Linda A. Detwiler [PDF] Page 1. 03-025IF 03-025IF-631 Linda A. Detwiler Page 2. ..





http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/03-025IF/03-025IF-631.pdf





03-025IF 03-025IF-634 Linda A. Detwiler [PDF] Page 1. 03-025IF 03-025IF-634 Linda A. Detwiler Page 2. ..





http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/03-025IF/03-025IF-634.pdf




Page 1 of 17 9/13/2005 [PDF] ... 2005 6:17 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [Docket No. 03-025IFA] FSIS Prohibition of the Use of Specified Risk Materials for Human Food ...





http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/03-025IFA/03-025IFA-2.pdf





03-025IFA 03-025IFA-6 Jason Frost [PDF] ... Zealand Embassy COMMENTS ON FEDERAL REGISTER 9 CFR Parts 309 et al [Docket No. 03- 025IF] Prohibition of the Use of Specified Risk Materials for Human Food and ...




http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/03-025IFA/03-025IFA-6.pdf





In its opinion of 7-8 December 2000 (EC 2000), the SSC ... [PDF] Page 1. Linda A. Detwiler, DVM 225 Hwy 35 Red Bank, New Jersey 07701 Phone: 732-741-2290 Cell: 732-580-9391 Fax: 732-741-7751 June 22, 2005 FSIS Docket Clerk US ...




http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/03-025IF/03-025IF-589.pdf




18 January 2007 - Draft minutes of the SEAC 95 meeting (426 KB) held on 7 December 2006 are now available.

snip...

64. A member noted that at the recent Neuroprion meeting, a study was presented showing that in transgenic mice BSE passaged in sheep may be more virulent and infectious to a wider range of species than bovine derived BSE.

Other work presented suggested that BSE and bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy (BASE) MAY BE RELATED. A mutation had been identified in the prion protein gene in an AMERICAN BASE CASE THAT WAS SIMILAR IN NATURE TO A MUTATION FOUND IN CASES OF SPORADIC CJD.

snip...





http://www.seac.gov.uk/minutes/95.pdf





3:30 Transmission of the Italian Atypical BSE (BASE) in Humanized Mouse

Models Qingzhong Kong, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Pathology, Case Western Reserve University

Bovine Amyloid Spongiform Encephalopathy (BASE) is an atypical BSE strain discovered recently in Italy, and similar or different atypical BSE cases were also reported in other countries. The infectivity and phenotypes of these atypical BSE strains in humans are unknown. In collaboration with Pierluigi Gambetti, as well as Maria Caramelli and her co-workers, we have inoculated transgenic mice expressing human prion protein with brain homogenates from BASE or BSE infected cattle. Our data shows that about half of the BASE-inoculated mice became infected with an average incubation time of about 19 months; in contrast, none of the BSE-inoculated mice appear to be infected after more than 2 years.

***These results indicate that BASE is transmissible to humans and suggest that BASE is more virulent than classical BSE in humans.***

6:30 Close of Day One





http://www.healthtech.com/2007/tse/day1.asp





SEE STEADY INCREASE IN SPORADIC CJD IN THE USA FROM 1997 TO 2006. SPORADIC CJD CASES TRIPLED, with phenotype of 'UNKNOWN' strain growing. ...





http://www.cjdsurveillance.com/resources-casereport.html





There is a growing number of human CJD cases, and they were presented last week in San Francisco by Luigi Gambatti(?) from his CJD surveillance collection.

He estimates that it may be up to 14 or 15 persons which display selectively SPRPSC and practically no detected RPRPSC proteins.





http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/06/transcripts/1006-4240t1.htm





http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/06/transcripts/2006-4240t1.pdf





THE USDA JUNE 2004 ENHANCED BSE SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM WAS TERRIBLY FLAWED ;

CDC DR. PAUL BROWN TSE EXPERT COMMENTS 2006

The U.S. Department of Agriculture was quick to assure the public earlier this week that the third case of mad cow disease did not pose a risk to them, but what federal officials have not acknowledged is that this latest case indicates the deadly disease has been circulating in U.S. herds for at least a decade.

The second case, which was detected last year in a Texas cow and which USDA officials were reluctant to verify, was approximately 12 years old.

These two cases (the latest was detected in an Alabama cow) present a picture of the disease having been here for 10 years or so, since it is thought that cows usually contract the disease from contaminated feed they consume as calves. The concern is that humans can contract a fatal, incurable, brain-wasting illness from consuming beef products contaminated with the mad cow pathogen.

"The fact the Texas cow showed up fairly clearly implied the existence of other undetected cases," Dr. Paul Brown, former medical director of the National Institutes of Health's Laboratory for Central Nervous System Studies and an expert on mad cow-like diseases, told United Press International. "The question was, 'How many?' and we still can't answer that."

Brown, who is preparing a scientific paper based on the latest two mad cow cases to estimate the maximum number of infected cows that occurred in the United States, said he has "absolutely no confidence in USDA tests before one year ago" because of the agency's reluctance to retest the Texas cow that initially tested positive.

USDA officials finally retested the cow and confirmed it was infected seven months later, but only at the insistence of the agency's inspector general.

"Everything they did on the Texas cow makes everything USDA did before 2005 suspect," Brown said. ...snip...end



http://www.upi.com/



CDC - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Variant Creutzfeldt ... Dr. Paul Brown is Senior Research Scientist in the Laboratory of Central Nervous System ... Address for correspondence: Paul Brown, Building 36, Room 4A-05, ...



http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no1/brown.htm



PAUL BROWN COMMENT TO ME ON THIS ISSUE

Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:10 AM

"Actually, Terry, I have been critical of the USDA handling of the mad cow issue for some years, and with Linda Detwiler and others sent lengthy detailed critiques and recommendations to both the USDA and the Canadian Food Agency." ........TSS

BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL

SOMETHING TO CHEW ON

BMJ





http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/319/7220/1312/b#EL2





BMJ




http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/320/7226/8/b#EL1





THE PATHOLOGICAL PROTEIN

BY Philip Yam

CHAPTER 14 LAYING ODDS

Answering critics like Terry Singeltary, who feels that the U.S. under- counts CJD, Schonberger conceded that the current surveillance system has errors but stated that most of the errors will be confined to the older population.




http://www.thepathologicalprotein.com/




INTRODUCTION




http://www.thepathologicalprotein.com/_wsn/page3.html





Yam Philip Yam News Editor Scientific American




www.sciam.com http://www.thepathologicalprotein.com/





Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Singeltary, Sr et al. JAMA.2001; 285: 733-734.





http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/285/6/733?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=dignosing+and+reporting+creutzfeldt+jakob+disease&searchid=1048865596978_1528&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&journalcode=jama





Journal of Neurology

Re: RE-Monitoring the occurrence of emerging forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United States

Email Terry S. Singeltary:

[log in to unmask]

I lost my mother to hvCJD (Heidenhain Variant CJD). I would like to

comment on the CDC's attempts to monitor the occurrence of emerging

forms of CJD. Asante, Collinge et al [1] have reported that BSE

transmission to the 129-methionine genotype can lead to an alternate

phenotype that is indistinguishable from type 2 PrPSc, the commonest

sporadic CJD. However, CJD and all human TSEs are not reportable

nationally. CJD and all human TSEs must be made reportable in every

state and internationally. I hope that the CDC does not continue to

expect us to still believe that the 85%+ of all CJD cases which are

sporadic are all spontaneous, without route/source. We have many TSEs in

the USA in both animal and man. CWD in deer/elk is spreading rapidly and

CWD does transmit to mink, ferret, cattle, and squirrel monkey by

intracerebral inoculation. With the known incubation periods in other

TSEs, oral transmission studies of CWD may take much longer. Every

victim/family of CJD/TSEs should be asked about route and source of this

agent. To prolong this will only spread the agent and needlessly expose

others. In light of the findings of Asante and Collinge et al, there

should be drastic measures to safeguard the medical and surgical arena

from sporadic CJDs and all human TSEs. I only ponder how many sporadic

CJDs in the USA are type 2 PrPSc?





http://www.neurology.org/cgi/eletters/60/2/176#535





Tracking spongiform encephalopathies in North America

THE LANCET Infectious Diseases Vol 3 August 2003





http://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473309903007151/fulltext





http://download.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/1473-3099/PIIS1473309903007151.pdf





http://lists.ifas.ufl.edu/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0702&L=sanet-mg&P=720




Tuesday, July 14, 2009

U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary and BSE Red Book Date: February 14, 2000 at 8:56 am PST

WHERE did we go wrong $$$





http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/07/us-emergency-bovine-spongiform.html





Transgenic mice expressing porcine prion protein resistant to classical scrapie but susceptible to sheep bovine spongiform encephalopathy and atypical scrapie. Emerg Infect Dis. 2009 Aug; [Epub ahead of print]





http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/07/transgenic-mice-expressing-porcine.html





Transmissible mink encephalopathy - review of the etiology





http://transmissible-mink-encephalopathy.blogspot.com/2009/07/transmissible-mink-encephalopathy.html





Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Nor98 scrapie identified in the United States J Vet Diagn Invest 21:454-463 (2009)





http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/07/nor98-scrapie-identified-in-united.html





Monday, June 01, 2009 Biochemical typing of pathological prion protein in aging cattle with BSE

SOMETHING TO PONDER ???

O.K. confusious asks, IF all these new atypical BSEs i.e. new strains of mad cow disease is just an 'OLD COW PRION DISEASE', why then can not the 'old human prion disease' such as the sporadic CJD, be from an 'old cow prion disease', same as the nvCJD 'young people mad cow disease' (which also happens in 74 year old), but why cannot the 'old cow prion diseases', i.e. l-BSE, h-BSE, and ibncBSE, cause the 'old people prion disease', which looks like sporadic CJD. seems that is what some of the pathology is showing ???

OH, that probably makes too much sense, and that the only answer could be that it's all just a happenstance of bad luck and or a spontaneous event, that just happens out of the clear blue sky $$$

IF this is the case, then where are all the SPONTANEOUS BSE CASES OF MAD COW DISEASE IN THE U.S.A., AND WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN BURIED IN THE USA OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS ???





http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/06/biochemical-typing-of-pathological.html






Saturday, June 13, 2009

Monitoring the occurrence of emerging forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United States 2003 revisited 2009





http://cjdusa.blogspot.com/2009/06/monitoring-occurrence-of-emerging-forms.html



SEE THE VIDEO NOW AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BLOG BELOW ;



http://creutzfeldt-jakob-disease.blogspot.com/2009/07/usa-hiding-mad-cow-disease-victims-as.html




Terry S. Singeltary SR. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518

U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary and BSE Red Book Date: February 14, 2000 at 8:56 am PST

U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary and BSE Red Book Date: February 14, 2000 at 8:56 am PST


WHERE did we go wrong $$$


Prelimanary Notification

The director of NVSL is responsible for immediately notifying the APHIS, Veterinary Services (VS) deputy administrator when tests suggest a presumptive diagnosis of BSE. Once NVSL has made a presumptive diagnosis of BSE, APHIS and FSIS field activities will also be initiated. APHIS will receive notification (either confirming or not confirming NVSL's diagnosis) from the United Kingdom anywhere between 24 and 96 hours

SEE FULL TEXT AT BOTTOM...

State-Federal Team Responds to Texas BSE Case

JUNE 30, 2005

(please note 7+ month delay in final confirmation so the BSE MRR policy could be set in stone first. $$$...tss)



http://www.tahc.state.tx.us/news/pr/2005/2005Jun30_BSE_Positive_Results.pdf



https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/other/bse/news/june3005bse.html



SEE ATTEMPTED COVER-UP BEFORE THE END AROUND BY FONG ET AL OF THE O.I.G

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed June 29 that genetic testing had verified bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in a 12-year-old cow that was born and raised in a Texas beef cattle herd.

Subsequent epidemiological investigations resulted in the culling and testing of 67 adult animals from the index herd. Bio-Rad tests for BSE were conducted on all 67 animals by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa. All tests were negative.

On July 12, Texas officials lifted the quarantine on the source herd. At press time, USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service was tracing animals of the same age that had left the ranch.

Timeline

The BSE-positive animal was a Brahman-cross cow born and raised in a single Texas herd. The location of the ranch was not disclosed.

On Nov. 11, 2004, the 12-year-old cow was taken to a Texas auction market. Because of its condition, the cow was sent to Champion Pet Foods in Waco, Texas. The company produces several blends of dog food, primarily for the greyhound industry.

On Nov. 15, the animal arrived dead at Champion. Under procedures established by USDA's intensive surveillance program, a sample was sent to the USDA-approved Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Testing Laboratory (TVMDL) at Texas A&M University.

Between June 1, 2004, and June 1, 2005, TVMDL tested nearly 34,000 samples from Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana. They tested the sample from Champion on Nov. 19 using a Bio-Rad ELISA rapid test for BSE. Initial results were inconclusive.

Because of the inconclusive results, a representative from USDA took the entire carcass to TVMDL where it was incinerated. USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) began tracing the animal and herd.

The sample was then sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory for further testing. Two Immunohistochemistry (IHC) tests were conducted and both were negative for BSE. At that point APHIS stopped their trace.

USDA scientists also ran an additional, experimental IHC "rapid" tissue fixation test for academic purposes. This test has not been approved internationally.

Some abnormalities were noted in the experimental test, but because the two approved tests came back negative, the results were not reported beyond the laboratory.

Monitoring by OIG

USDA's Office of Inspector General (OIG) has been monitoring implementation of the BSE expanded surveillance program and evaluating the following:

* Effectiveness of the surveillance program;

* Performance of BSE laboratories in complying with policies and procedures for conducting tests and reporting results;

* Enforcement of the ban on specified risk materials in meat products;

* Controls to prevent central nervous system tissue in advanced meat recovery products;

* Ante mortem condemnation procedures; and

* Procedures for obtaining brain tissue samples from condemned cattle.

While reviewing voluminous records, OIG auditors noticed conflicting test results on one sample-rapid inconclusive, IHC negative, experimental reactive.

Sample retested

At the recommendation of the Inspector General, the sample was retested during the week of June 5 with a second confirmatory test, the Western Blot. The results were reactive.

USDA scientists then conducted an additional IHC confirmatory test, using different antibodies from the November 2004 test. On Friday, June 10, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns publicly announced the results as a "weak positive."

On June 16 an official with USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory hand-carried samples for further testing to the Veterinary Laboratory Agency (VLA) in Weybridge, England. Since 1991, the VLA has been a BSE reference laboratory for the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

Experts from the Weybridge lab confirmed the accuracy of the results of USDA's November confirmatory IHC test, concurring that the case could not have been confirmed on the basis of this sample. They also examined the November experimental IHC test and interpreted the results to be positive.

Weybridge also conducted additional tests, including IHC, OIE-prescribed Western Blot, NaTTA Western Blot and Prionics Western Blot tests.

To better understand the conflicting results, USDA also conducted Bio-Rad and IDEXX rapid screening tests, IHC and OIE-prescribed Western Blot. USDA also used DNA sequencing to determine the prion protein gene sequence of the animal.



http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5420/is_200508/ai_n21377094



Texas even had a 'secret' test that showed that mad cow positive; experimental IHC test results, because the test was not a validated procedure, and because the two approved IHC tests came back negative, the results were not considered to be of regulatory significance and therefore were not reported beyond the laboratory. . A Western blot test conducted the week of June 5, 2005, returned positive for BSE.



http://www.usda.gov/documents/vs_bse_ihctestvar.pdf



48 hr BSE confirmation turnaround took 7+ months to confirm this case, so the BSE MRR policy could be put into place. ...TSS



-------- Original Message --------

Subject: re-USDA's surveillance plan for BSE aka mad cow disease

Date: Mon, 02 May 2005 16:59:07 -0500

From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."

To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000265/!x-usc:mailto:paffairs@oig.hhs.gov, mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000265/!x-usc:mailto:HHSTips@oig.hhs.gov, mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000265/!x-usc:mailto:contactOIG@hhsc.state.tx.us

Greetings Honorable Paul Feeney, Keith Arnold, and William Busbyet al at OIG, ...............

snip...

There will be several more emails of my research to follow. I respectfully request a full inquiry into the cover-up of TSEs in the United States of America over the past 30 years. I would be happy to testify...

Thank you, I am sincerely, Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518 xxx xxx xxxx

snip... see full text ;



http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/10/idiopathic-brainstem-neuronal.html



From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr. (216-119-138-126.ipset18.wt.net)
Subject: U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary
Date: February 14, 2000 at 8:56 am PST

Subject: U.S. Emergency Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Response Plan Summary Date: Tue, 4 May 1999 18:25:12 -0500 From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000265/!x-usc:mailto:BSE-L@uni-karlsruhe.de

From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr., Bacliff, Texas......

I thought it might be interesting for those of you who have not seen this plan, to do so. So here it is...........

The mission of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is to enhance the quality of life for the American people by supporting production agriculture; ensuring a safe, affordable, nutritious, and accessible food supply; caring for agricultural, forest, and range lands; supporting sound development of rural communities; providing economic opportunities for farm and rural residents; expanding global markets for agricultural and forest products and services; and working to reduce hunger in America and throughout the world.

USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is responsible for ensuring the health and care of animals and plants. APHIS improves agricultural productivity and competitiveness and contributes to the national economy and the public health. USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) is responsible for protecting the Nation's meat and poultry supply--making sure it is safe, wholesome, unadulterated, and properly labeled and packaged. These two agencies have come together to lead USDA's actions in the prevention, monitoring, and control of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the U.S. livestock and food supply.

The public knows BSE as "MAD COW DISEASE", a disease linked to human cases of new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD). USDA knows BSE as the disease that devastated the livestock industry in the United Kingdom and shattered consumer confidence in Europe. BSE has affected international trade and all aspects of the animal and public health communities. It has called even greater attention to the U.S. Government's accountability for a safe food supply.

No case of BSE has ever been found in the United States. Since 1989, USDA has had a number of stringent safeguards in place to prevent BSE from entering the country. USDA conducts an ongoing, comprehensive interagency surveillance program for BSE. This surveillance program allows USDA to monitor actively for BSE to ensure immediate detection in the event that BSE were to be introduced into the United States. Immediate detection allows for swift response. As an emergency preparedness measure, USDA has developed this BSE Response Plan to be initiated in the event that a case of BSE is diagnosed in the United States. The Plan details comprehensive instructions for USDA staff as to who is to do what, when, where, and how in the event that BSE were to be diagnosed in the United States.

BACKGROUND

APHIS is responsible for being prepared for potential FOREIGN animal disease outbreaks. The purpose of such preparation is to provide a step-by-step plan of action in the event that a FOREIGN animal disease, such as BSE, is detected in the United States. These plans, often referred to as "RED BOOKS", provide guidance by outlining certain actions that should take place, such as identification of a suspect animal, laboratory confirmation, epidemiologic investigation, and animal and herd disposition activities. Copies of Red Books for specific FOREIGN animal diseases are distributed to agency headquarters and each regional and field office to have in preparation for a disease outbreak.

In 1990, APHIS developed a plan to respond to a confirmation of BSE in the United States. In August 1996, a joint APHIS-FSIS working group updated the BSE Red Book in accordance with current science and research surrounding BSE and the related family of disease called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE's). The BSE Red Book is officially entitled BSE EMERGENCY DISEASE GUIDELINES.

The APHIS-FSIS working group determined that the BSE Red Book, which detailed laboratory and field activities to be carried out in an emergency, needed another component. After the March 1996 announcement by the United Kingdom that BSE was linked to nvCJD, it became apparent to the working group that the Plan needed to address communication issues, both internally within USDA and the Federal Government and externally to the public at large. A confirmed case of BSE would affect such a vast array of stakeholders-consumers, cattle producers, the food animal industry, international trading partners, animal and public health communities, media, and others. Having clear, accurate information readily available would build trust and credibility and facilitate any response measures needed. There needed to be a notification plan. Who was responsible for notifying who, what, when, and how? The plan needed to identify clear channels of communication as to ensure immediate collection and dissemination of accurate information.

The joint APHIS--FSIS working group became formally known as the BSE Response Team and is responsible for the development of this BSE Response Response Plan. BSE Response Team members represent a mix of backgrounds and expertise, including veterinary medicine, food safety, public health, epidemiology, pathology, international trade, and public affairs. The Team is coordinatied by two Team Leaders, one each from APHIS and FSIS, who serve as liaisons and technical advisors to their respective agencies on regulations and policies regarding BSE. Over the past 2 years, the BSE Response Plan has been reviewed, edited, revised, and approved by officials at all levels of APHIS, FSIS, and USDA. The Plan has also been shared with other Government agencies, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other stakeholders, such as the Animal Ag Coalition. The BSE Response Team monitors and assesses all ongoing events and research findings regarding TSE's. The Team leaders are responsible for ensuring that prevention and diagnostic measures are continually revised and adjusted as new information and knowledge become available.

NOTIFICATION: Roles and Responsibilities

Surveillance

As part of USDA's surveillance program for BSE in the United States, veterinary pathologists and field investigators from APHIS and FSIS have received training from British counterparts in diagnosing BSE. FSIS inspects cattle before they go to slaughter; these inspection procedures include identifying animals with central nervous system conditions. Animals with such conditions are considered suspect for BSE, prohibited from slaughter, and referred to APHIS for examination as explained below.

Pathologists at APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) histopathologically examine the brains from these condemned animals. In addition, samples are tested using a technique called immunohistochemistry, which tests for the presence of the protease-resistant prion protein (a marker for BSE). NVSL also examines samples from neurologically ill cattle and nonambulatory ("DOWNER") cattle identified on the farm or at slaughter and from rabies-negative cattle submitted to veterinary diagnostic laboratories and teaching hospitals.

NOTIFICATION

Because of their responsibility for examining condemned or BSE-suspect animals, NVSL is the organization responsible for activating the notification and BSE response process. It is NVSL that will begin the activation of the BSE Response Plan. From the time a sample is submitted, it takes 14 to 18 days to confirm a diagnosis of BSE In the first 10 to 13 days, pathologists at NVSL have enough information to either rule out BSE or determine the need for additional tests. If it is determined that there is no evidence of BSE, the results are added to the more than 7,500 others that have also been negative. NVSL maintains these data.

If additional tests do suggest a presumptive diagnosis of BSE, an NVSL pathologist will hand carry the sample to the United Kingdom for confirmation. It is at this critical point, when NVSL suggests a diagnosis of BSE and is preparing to send the sample to the United Kingdom, that this BSE Response Plan is initiated. The Plan begins the preliminary notification from NVSL to APHIS.

Prelimanary Notification

The director of NVSL is responsible for immediately notifying the APHIS, Veterinary Services (VS) deputy administrator when tests suggest a presumptive diagnosis of BSE.

Once NVSL has made a presumptive diagnosis of BSE, APHIS and FSIS field activities will also be initiated. APHIS will receive notification (either confirming or not confirming NVSL's diagnosis) from the United Kingdom anywhere between 24 and 96 hours. (The international animal health community has recognized the United Kingdom's Central Veterinary Laboratory {CVL} as the world's reference laboratory for diagnosing BSE. Other countries, including Belgium, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland, have all sent samples to this lab to confirm their first case of BSE).

NVSL

NVSL will provide all laboratory support in carrying out this BSE Response Plan and serve as the liaison with CVL. NVSL will prepare its facility to receive and process additional samples from the suspect animal's progeny or herdmates or other suspects. NVSL will also coordinate any other assistance from State or university diagnostic laboratories if necessary.

APHIS, VS DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR

Veterinary Services is the animal health arm of APHIS and the program responsible for carrying out field actions in response to BSE. Upon notifiction of a presumptive diagnosis from NVSL, the APHIS, VS deputy administrator immediately notifies the FSIS, Office of Public Health and Science (OPHS) deputy administrator. APHIS and FSIS deputy administrators will alert the BSE Response Team and activate the Response Plan. The VS deputy administrator serves as the liaison between the BSE Response Team and the APHIS administrator. The APHIS, VS deputy administrator notifies the APHIS administrator and the VS regional director of the State from which the suspect animal originated.

APHIS Administrator

The APHIS Administrator immediately notifies the USDA Assistant Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. This immediate notification will be followed by an official informational memorandum from the APHIS Administrator, through the Assistant Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, to the Secretary of Agriculture. This memorandum will be prepared by the BSE Response Team; a draft is maintained by the Team leaders in the reserved section of their plans. The APHIS Administrator is responsible for securing indemnity funds for depopulation of the herd if CVL confirms NVSL's diagnosis.

Assistant Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs

The Assistant Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, in conjuction with the Undersecretary for Food Safety, is responsible for notifying the Secretary. The Assistant Secretary serves as the liaison between APHIS and Department-level officials.

Secretary of Agriculture

The Secretary has the authority to declare a Federal EMERGENCY if appropriate and approve funding as necessary. Information will be provided to the Secretary up the chain of command from the BSE Response Team.

FSIS, OPHS Deputy Administrator

The OPHS Deputy Administrator, together with the APHIS, VS Deputy Administrator, alert the BSE Response Team leaders and instruct them to assemble the BSE Response Team and activate the Plan. The OPHS Deputy Administrator serves as the liaison between the BSE Response Team and the FSIS Administrator. The OPHS Deputy Administrator is responsible for notifying the FSIS regional director in charge of the State from which the suspect animal originated.

FSIS Deputy Administrator

The FSIS Deputy Administrator is responsible for notifying the Undersecretary for Food Safety.

Undersecretary for Food Safety

The Undersecretary for Food Safety, in conjuction with the Assistant Secretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs, notifies the Secretary of Agriculture.

APHIS, VS, Regional Director

The APHIS, VS regional director in charge of the State from which the suspect animal originated notifies the VS Area Veterinarian-in-Charge (AVIC) for that State. The regional director is the liaison between VS field staff and the VS Deputy Administrator at headquarters. In addition, the regional director shares all information with the BSE Response Team.

APHIS, VS, AVIC

The VS AVIC, in cooperation with State animal health authorities, is responsible for coordination the field activities surrounding the emergency response to BSE. The AVIC assembles the local VS staff to initiate activities outlined in the BSE Red Book including tracing the progeny and herdmates of the suspect animal and beginning an epidemiologic investigation. The VS AVIC coordinates with the State Veterinarian to quarantine the suspect animal's herd of origin. The State has the authority to order a routine quarantine for a neurological disease. The BSE Response Team surveyed every State to determine if they would utilize this authority in the event that NVSL identifies a presumptive diagnosis of BSE. All States responded that they would issue a quarantine.

BSE Response Team

The BSE Response Team leaders will notify each team member and instruct them to assemble in the Situation Room at APHIS headquarters in Riverdale, MD. The Team leaders are responsible for ensuring that all of the Team's duties are fulfilled. It is their responsibility to ensure that the technical information and expert recommendations reach the decisionmakers in a timely fashion. Together with VS Emergency Programs staff, the Team leaders will obtain APHIS, VS administrative support staff in Riverdale, MD, to ready the room for use as BSE headquarters. The Team will begin gathering and assembling information from APHIS and FSIS region and field staff. The Team will pull the draft documents from the third section in the Team leaders manuals and begin filling in current information as it becomes available.

Public Notification

Should NVSL receive notice from CVL confirming a case of BSE, the next level of notification is activated. Each player will follow the same notification protocol as described above for preliminary notification to confirm the diagnosis of a case of BSE.

BSE Response Team

The BSE Response Team will complete the informational memorandum for the Secretary. The Team will prepare the letter to the Office of International Epizootics (OIE), the international animal health organization, for signature by the APHIS, VS Deputy Administrator. OIE requires that all countries submit official notification within 24 hours of confirming a diagnosis of BSE.

The BSE Response Team and the office of the APHIS, VS Deputy Administrator would coordinate a teleconference to inform all APHIS regional directors and AVIC'S.

The BSE Response Team and the office of the FSIS, OPHS Deputy Administrator would coordinate a teleconference to inform all regional and field FSIS offices.

The BSE Response Team would coordinate a teleconference to notify other Federal agencies.

The BSE Response Team would coordinate a teleconference to notify key industry/consumer representatives.

The BSE Response Team and APHIS International Services would notify foreign embassies.

The BSE Response Team would establish a toll-free 800 telephone line for industry representatives, reporters, and the public.

The BSE Response Team would coordinate with APHIS Legislative and Public Affairs and USDA office of Communications to issue a press release the day the diagnosis is confirmed. The press release would announce a press conference to be held the morning after the diagnosis is confirmed......

THE END


From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr. (216-119-138-129.ipset18.wt.net)
Subject: Emergency Operations...BSE Red Book Date: March 13, 2000 at 1:30 pm PST

BSE Red Book 2.1-35

7.0 Emergency Operations

The section below would be implemented only after a first case of BSE is confirmed in the United States.

7.1 READEO Activation

READEO activation will rarely be necessary for BSE outbreaks. Different from most other foreign animal diseases and infectious diseases, BSE is not a rapidly spreading, acute epizootic; is not thought to be transmitted horizontally between animals within a herd, has an extremely long incubation period, and usually affects only isolated single animals or, at most, a few animals within herds. Because BSE does not spread rapidly, the workload to investigate and manage most outbreaks should not normally exceed the capability of existing local field personnel. READEO activation should be considered only if the particular circumstances of a BSE outbreak warrant. If field personnel feel they are unable to manage a BSE outbreak, they should communicate this to their Regional Director and VS, Emergency Program staff, who will evaluate the need for READEO activation.

7.2 READEO Organization

If READEO is activated, a reference should be made to the revised READEO Manual for further guidance on READEO organization and operations.

7.2.1 Office of the Director

When an animal disease emergency exists, the Task Force Directors are responsible for the READEO activities. The directors immediately move to the location of the outbreak and setup the READEO headquarters. Work is coordinated with State officials of the States involved in the outbreak.

7.2.1.1 State Director--(Note: This is the new designation for the Assistant Director.) Each READEO may have one or more State Directors since each State where the disease outbreak is found will be represented in the READEO by State officials designated by the State Veterinarian.

7.2.1.2 Emergency Program Officer--This individual, designated by the Chief Staff Veterinarian of VS, Emergency Programs, provides liaison between the READEO and the Emergency Programs at APHIS headquarters.

7.2.1.3 Public Affairs Officer--The Public Affairs Officer plans, develops, supervises, and maintains information activities for the READEO.

7.2.1.4 Legal--The Legal Advisor provides counsel and assistance to the READEO.

7.2.1.5 Military--The U.S. Armed Forces Command will designate a senior line officer to be the Military Support Officer on the staff of the READEO Task Force Directon The individual is assigned to be the liaison between the Depart-

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ment of Defense and VS, Emergency Programs,and to coordinate needed military assistance during eradication of an FAD outbreak.

7.2.1.6 Meat and Poultry Inspection Operations--The Meat and Poultry Inspection Operations, Food Safety and Inspection Service, will designate personnel to report to the READEO Task Director and to provide liaison between the Task Force and the Meat and Poultry Inspection Operations.

7.2.1.7 Laboratory Coordination--The Laboratory Coordination Officer will advise the READE(3 Director concerning laboratory capabilities and appropriate laboratory examinations to be conducted to provide needed results as rapidly as possible. This individual will assist with interpretation of results.

7.2.2 Administration The Administrative Officer assigned to the READEO will direct and coordinate all facets of general administrative functions. Refer to the revised READEO Manual for a detailed description of the organization and responsibilities.

7.2.3 Field Operations The Field Operations Officer will direct line operations and supervise field personnel in a READEO. Disease investigation, field epidemiology, disease security and personnel security, animal movement control and quarantine enforcement, appraisals of animals and materials, depopulation and disposal, and cleaning and disinfection are among this person's responsibilities.

7.2.4 Technical Support Staff support consists of a technically competent staff designed to act as a resource for the READEO Task Force. Personnel may include but are not limited to individuals who have expertise in the following areas: animal welfare, data systems, disease reporting, economics, environmental impact, epidemiology, evaluation, orientation and training, risk analysis, and wildlife. The staff communicates the needs of the Field Epidemiology Delivery System (FEDS) to the READEO Director as required to maintain an efficient, accurate, up-to-date FEDS.

7.2.4.1 Animal Welfare---Animal Welfare Officers must be knowledgeable about current Federal and State animal welfare regulations, humane methods of animal depopulation, and socioeconomic concerns related to animal welfare issues. They advise the technical support staff and field operations concerning current procedures and accepted methods for use in the humane depopulation of livestock and poultry.

7.2.4.2 Wildlife-- Wildlife Officers participate with the Director and other officials of the READEO to establish and carry out wildlife policies and objectives for the emergency animal disease operation. Through familiarity with the topography, wildlife density, susceptible wildlife species, and movements of susceptible wildlife, the Wildlife Officers can review maps and make recommendations concerning areas to be included in the quarantined high-risk and buffer zones. These officers maintain contact with local, State, and Federal wildlife enforcement officers and wildlife biologists. They develop strategies for conducting surveys of susceptible wi!dlife in the outbreak

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area to determine the incidence of the disease. They direct and coordinate the vaccination and depopulation of wild animals as necessary to eliminate the disease.

7.3 Supplies and Equipment During an outbreak of BSE, supplies and equipment should be obtained through normal procurement procedures. If a READEO is activated, supplies and equipment should be ordered through the READEO Procurement and Supply Officer.

7.3.1 General Field Supplies Guidelines Refer to APHIS Directive 326.1, 10/10/77 and 221.1, 1/29/74.

7.4 Personnel Responsibilities During a BSE outbreak, field personnel should follow instructions issued through the normal chain of command. If a READEO is activated, personnel should refer to the revised READEO Manual for detailed descriptions of individual responsibilities.

7.4.1 Personnel Personnel assigned to the READEO Task Force are individually accountable for equipment and supplies checked out to them. They should order replacement equipment and supplies or return equipment for repairs through the READEO Procurement and Supply Officer. All damages or losses to equipment or vehicles should be reported immediately to the READEO Administrative Officer, and the required forms should be completed and submitted promptly.

7.4.2 Travel Employees of the READEO Task Force are responsible for recording and preparing all travel-related documents. Claims for travel, lodging, per diem, and incidental expenses should be submitted to the READEO Administrative Officer for processing.

7.4.3 Vehicles Employees of the READEO Task Force are responsible for operating, cleaning, and performing routine maintenance of assigned vehicles. They also are responsible for recording mileage, expenses, and services. Required reports are to be submitted to the READEO Vehicle Officer.

7.4. 4 Clothing Employees of the READEO Task Force are issued protective clothing to wear when entering a premises where BSE has been diagnosed or is suspected. Clean clothing should be worn on each premises. Employees are responsible for laundering the clothing before reusing it.

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In a large task-foree operation, arrangements may be made for a commercial laundry service to handle the clothing. If it is possible and practical, all clothing should be labeled to identify the employees to whom it is assigned.

7.4.5 Miscellaneous Responsibilities Employees are responsible for conducting their assigned tasks in a professional manner. Complaints concerning task force employees should be directed to the READEO Director for resolution or appropriate action.

All animals, products, and materials to be destroyed because of BSE should be appraised according to 9 CFR 53.3 and appropriate State regulations.

7.5.1 Appraisal Teams Appraisals must represent the interests of the owner, the State, and the Federal Government and be consistent with fair market values. If State authorities approve, State and Federal interests may be represented by a VS employee alone. Owners may, at their discretion and expense, employ a professional appraiser to advise them or to act as their agent. Either the owner or the owner's agent must be present at appraisals. No animals may be destroyed until after the appraisal forms are signed by the owner or the owner's agent. Appraisers should be certain that the owner or the owner's agent is aware of the indemnity form's clause concerning liens and mortgages.

When the number of animals to be destroyed is small, and the total value of animals, products, and materiais is low, APHIS field personnel may negotiate the appraised value with the animal's owner without assistance from a professional appraiser. The appraised value of a BSE suspect should be the slaughter value of the animal, taking into account any existing defects or diseases that would affect the slaughter value but ignoring those signs that caused the animal to be classified as a BSE suspect. If field personnel are in doubt concerning the need to use a professional appraiser, they should consult their supervisor or VS, Emergency Programs staff.

If a determination is made that healthy progeny, ova, semen, or embryos must be destroyed, they should be appraised at 100 percent of replacement value.

Feeds or feed ingredients located on suspect farms will rarely need to be destroyed. If a determination is made that feeds or feed ingredients must be destroyed (for example, to comply with a policy decision to remove all rendered products from animal feeds), then these materials should be appraised and indemn'ff~ed according to 9 CFR 53.3.

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BSE Red Book 2.1-39

7.6 Depopulation Procedures

7.6.1 Factors and Considerations If the owner is agreeable, a humane method of euthanasia of BSE suspects will be necessary to facilitate the accurate diagnosis of the disease problem, to ensure that the suspect animal is not slaughtered or rendered, and to terminate the animal's suffering. Under no circumstances may BSE suspects be sent fo slaughhter or rendering. Notify FDA, CVM if you suspect that the carcass of a BSE-confirmed animal has moved to rendering or animal feed manufacturing. The VS, Emergency Programs staff, Riverdale, MD, must authorize the use of euthanasia, depopulation, and indemnity payments for READEO operations.

7.6.2 Humane Euthanasia Methods Only experienced veterinarians should perform euthanasia because there are inherent dangers. Precautions should be taken to prevent accidents. Owners should be given a complete explanation of what to expect, and only humane euthanasia methods should be used. Euthanasia should be performed away from public view, and, if possible, the owner should not be present. Euthanized animals must be checked to confirm death. (See VS Memo 583.1, 1992.)

7.6.2.1 Mechanical (Firearms)--Because the only acceptable method for euthanizing an animal by using firearms is to shoot it in the head, and because the animal's brain must be preserved to diagnose BSE, firearms are not an acceptable euthanasia method.

7.6.2.2 Chemicals(Toxic Gas or Lethal Injection)--Follow guidelines established by the American Veterinary Medical Association. When using a regulated controlled substance (e.g., barbiturates), control and administration of the euthanasia agent must be given by a veterinarian having a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) number issued by the U.S. Treasury. Control and administration of chemical substances for euthanasia must be authorized by the AVIC unless directed by the VS Deputy Administrator. (See VS Memorandum 583.1, 1992.)

7.6.3 Supervision of Depopulation Field personnel should never perform depopulation or euthanasia without explicit permission from their supervisor or, if appropriate, the READEO Humane and Disposal Officer. (Refer to the revised READEC) Manual.)

7. 6.4 Permits for Movement All BSE suspects may be moved under permit to facilitate medical treatment, euthanasia, necropsy examination, or carcass disposal. Permitted movement will be according to the quarantine restrictions and will be administered by the State or Federal officials.

7. 6. 5 Security Because BSE is neither contagious nor vector borne, strict disease security measures are not necessary. Personnel should observe normal disease security measures that are standard procedure for all farm visits. The READEO's Security and Disease Prevention Officer has the responsibility for establishing biosecurity measures.

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BSE Red Book 2.1-40

7.7 Disposal Under no circumstances may BSE suspects be sent to slaughter or rendering. Notify FDA, CVM if you suspect that the carcass of a BSE-confirmed animal has moved to rendering or animal feed manufacturing. Field personel should arrange for the carcass to be transported to and examined by a qualified veterinary pathologist or field veterinary medical officer. After the pathologic examination has been completed and the necessary diagnostic specimens have been obtained, field personnel should arrange for disposal of the carcass. Before a method of disposal is selected, there are many factors that must be considered, and often other State and Federal agencies must be consulted. The environmental and legal impacts of the operation must be considered. Upon recommendation of the State or Federal agencies, VS may consider other disposal methods.

7.7.1 Incineration Incineration, although more expensive than burial, is the preferred disposal method for BSE-suspect carcasses. Federal, State, and local environmental regulations may restrict the use of this method and permits may be necessary. As soon as BSE suspects are reported to APHIS, field personnel should investigate the location and availability of incinerators of sufficient size to process a bovine carcass. Institutions likely to have incinerators include State and university diagnostic laboratories, waste contractors, large municipalities, and private industries. Ideally, the diagnostic laboratory where the pathologic examination was done will have incineration facilities. The BSE-suspect carcass disposal is APHIS' responsibility (not the diagnostic laboratory's). Field personnel should arrange for transportation and final disposal of the suspect carcass and should inform their supervisors and/or the READEO Humane and Disposal Officer of these arrangements.

Personnel should be aware that some laboratories dispose of carcasses by rendering and should specifically inquire if this is the case. CNS suspects should be incinerated or held from rendering until a diagnosis of BSE can be ruled out. Under no circumstances may BSE susuects be sent to slaughter or rendering. Notify FDA, CVM if you suspect that the carcass of a BSE-confirmed animal has moved to rendering or animal feed manufacturing.

Field personnel should be prepared to accompany the carcass from the farm of origin to the diagnostic laboratory and then to the disposal site if any doubt exists concerning the final disposal method.

7.7.2 Burial If there are no other avenues for carcass disposal, burial of BSE-suspect carcasses may be an acceptable disposal method. APHIS field personnel should inquire with environmental authorities concerning Federal, State, and local regulations that may impose restrictions on this method.

The burial site may be on the affected farm, at the diagnostic laboratory where the carcass is examined, or in a local landfill. The site should be inaccessible to animals, removed from populated areas, not used for agricultural purposes, clearly marked, and properly protected.

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Burial sites should also be located a sufficient distance from underground utility lines, septic systems, water wells, and surface water. Local environmental or public works officers may be helpful in locating a satisfactory site.

Field personnel should consult with their supervisors and/or the READEO Environmental Impact Officer before digging. Burial trenches are normally at least 9 feet deep with floor dimensions of 7 by 2 feet per adult bovine carcass. Carcasses should be covered with at least 6 feet of soil. This soil should not be tightly packed because gas formation may cause a tightly packed trench to crack and leak.

7.7.3 Rendering Because BSE is spread by rendered animal protein, BSE-suspect and confirmed carcasses must not be rendered, unless the rendered material is incinerated. Notify FDA, CVM if you suspect that dead BSE animals or carcasses have moved to rendering or animal feed manufacturing.

7.7.4 Other Disposal Methods The AVIC, the State animal health officials, and the READEO Director may recommend other methods of disposal to the Deputy Administer, VS, for approval (9 CFR 53.4). Options for disposal must be discussed and approved by VS, Emergency Programs staff and must comply with all State and local Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

7.8 Cleaning and Disinfecting (C&D)

Although BSE is neither contagious nor vector borne, appropriate C&D is required to prevent farm-to-farm transmission of most other infectious diseases. Field personnel must remember, however, that at the time they are requested to euthanize a BSE-suspect animal, a confirmed diagnosis of BSE will not be available. Signs compatible with BSE may be caused by numerous infectious diseases and many BSE-suspect animals will, in fact, have some other disease. Although the C&D of items such as manure, bedding, feed, stalls, halters, milking machines, and other supplies and equipment that have been in contact with BSE suspects is not specifically necessary to control BSE, C&D is still advisable to control other diseases that may be present.

7.8.1 Procedures for Cleaning and Disinfecting

7.8.1.1 Premises and Items--Field personnel are not responsible for C&D of premises such as barns, stalls, and animal pens unless invasive diagnostic procedures (such as a necropsy examination or the removal of the suspect animal's brain) were performed on the premises. If possible, field personnel should avoid doing such procedures on the farm. If circumstances require that such procedures must be done on the farm, personnel should clean and disinfect the immediate area after completing the work.

7.8.1.2 Vehicles--Vehicles used to transport personnel to affected premises should be kept clean, and normal precautions against the farm-to-farm spread of any disease should be observed.

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BSE Red Book 2.1-42

7,8.1.3 Carriers--Thoroughly clean trucks and trailers transporting BSE suspects. Manure and bedding may be disposed of by any environmentally accepted method such as spreading on fields or composting. After conveyances have been thoroughly cleaned, disinfectant should be sprayed on the sides and floor of the truck bed.

7.8.1.4 Livestock Markets--The risk of BSE transmission at livestock markets is negligible. If a BSE suspect is found at a livestock market, it should be managed the same as if it were found at a farm. Because of the high risk of transmission of diseases other than BSE, invasive diagnostic procedures, such as a necropsy examination or removal of the suspect animal's head, should not be performed at livestock markets. Due to the recent research findings concerning maternal transmission, any pens or areas in which calving occurs should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

Cleaning and disinfection is not necessary to prevent the spread of BSE. However, the C&D procedures are recommended to prevent the spread of other diseases from pens or buildings where BSE suspects were held. 7.8.1.5 Slaughter Plants--Becanse BSE is spread by rendered animal protein in cattle feeds, BSE suspects must not be slaughtered nor rendered. If a BSE suspect is found at a slaughter plant, it should be managed similarly to finding a suspect at a farm.

7.8.2 Approved Disinfectants Field personnel should use professional judgment in the choice of a disinfectant. Preferred disinfectants to inactivate the BSE agent include 1N sodium hydroxide solution or sodium hypochlorite solution containing 2 percent chlorine (1 hour exposure at 20 %C [68 %F]). This should be used whenever there is reason to strongly suspect that BSE is in fact the cause of the suspect animal's disease. Such reasons include previously confirmed BSE in the geographic area or signs more compatible with BSE than with any other neurologic disease.

If the suspect animal's signs are more compatible with diseases such as rabies or listeriosis, then a phenolic disinfectant such as "One Stroke" may be preferable. (Refer to appendix A Survival of BSE Agent and sec. 1.4.4.)

7. 8. 3 Precautions All disinfectants are hazardous to human beings, animals, and the environment. Label directions should be carefully read and followed. Many disinfectants, including sodium hypochlorite solution, are also corrosive and should be used with caution on metal and other corrodible materials. Thorough rinsing is necessary if corrosive disinfectants are used on metallic items.

Disinfectants, especially in concentrated form, may irritate skin, eyes, and respiratory systems. Protective equipment such as appropriate clothing, rubber boots, rubber gloves, mask and goggles should be worn during mixing and application of disinfectants. If areas of the body are exposed to a disinfectant, they should be washed thoroughly with water. Employees should notify their supervisor and their Health and Safety Officer if excessive human or animal exposure to disinfectants occurs or if there is accidental release into the environment.

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BSE Red Book 2.1-43

Field personnel should use normal hygienic procedures (such as washing and disinfecting boots and removing the outer layer of clothing) when leaving the farm. Unless the disease problem is noncontagious, personnel should not travel to other livestock premises for the duration of that day.

7.9 Vector Control

Current scientific data indicate that BSE is not spread by vectors.

7.10 Disease Prevention and Philosophy

The goal of disease prevention and control is to confine the occurrence of BSE to as few herds as possible and to prevent recycling of the BSE agent in the ruminant food supply. If undiagnosed cases are rendered and included in ruminant rations, the long incubation period may allow many animals to be exposed.

Action should be taken immediately after the detection and confirmation of BSE to initiate an extensive epidemiologic investigation to determine the source and extent of the disease, to stop the spread, and to eradicate the disease.

7.10.1 Philosophy--Immediate action should be taken to prevent contamination of the animal food supply by prohibiting rendering of any infected or suspect bovine carcasses. In addition, care should be taken to monitor those animals born and raised in affected herds and to prevent their becoming a source of infection to other herds.

7.10.2 Agent Spread--Epidemiologic evidence indicates that the primary route of BSE transmission is through the feeding of contaminated meat and bone meal that has been manufactured using scrapie infected sheep carcasses or BSE infected bovine carcasses. Recent research findings suggest that maternal transmission may occur at a rate of approximately 1 percent in some species. It is believed that this route of transmission is not significant enough to maintain an epidemic. Cases of apparent maternal transmission have also been identified in captive exotic ruminants.

7.10.3 Control of Products and Conveyances--Carcasses of BSE suspects should be incinerated. Carcasses must not be rendered and incorporated in animal feed. If carcasses are transported for disposal, conveyances should be cleaned and disinfected after use with either a sodium hypochlorite solution (2 percent available chlorine) or 1 N lye (sodium hydroxide solution).

7.10.4 Control of Biologics and Drugs--Although no documented cases of BSE have resulted from the use of biologics derived from bovines, tissues from suspect or exposed animals must not be used for the production of biologics and drugs.

The agents responsible for causing the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies are highly resistant to normal inactivation processes. Careful selection of source materials is the best way to secure maximum safety of ingredients or reagents of bovine origin used in the manufacture of biologics or other medicinals. Factors that should be considered are the age of the animals, exposure to the agent, and the tissue or organ from which the product is derived.

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BSE Red Book 2.1-44

7.10.5 Wild Birds, Wind and Insects---Wild birds, wind and insects are not known factors in the spread of BSE.

7.10.6 Rodents--Rodents are not known factors in the spread of BSE. 7.10.7 Hunting--Restrictions on the hunting of wild animals are not necessary to prevent BSE.

7.10.8 Exhibitions--Cancelling scheduled exhibitions is not necessary.

7.10.9 Rendering Trucks and Drivers--The carcasses from BSE suspects must not be rendered. If any rendering truck is used to transport a suspect, it should be cleaned, washed, and disinfected as above. (Refer to appendix A--Agent Survival and sec. 7.8.2--Disinfectants.)

7.10.10 Treatment--Currently there is no known treatment for BSE.

7.10.11 Prevention--Suspects and animals confirmed to have BSE must not be rendered. Producers, feed mills, and rendering establishments should adhere to U.S. State and local rendering policies and FDA regulations concerning the feeding of rendered animal protein to ruminants. Because of the possibility that some transmissible spongiform encephalopathies may be transmitted at the time of parturition, precautions should be taken to prevent exposure of healthy animal to placenta and reproductive fluids. Importation of live animals and animal products from countries with BSE or having high risk factors for BSE should be restricted based upon scientific risk assessment.

7.10.11.1 Immunization--The agent that causes BSE elicits no detectable immune response in the host. Therefore, vaccination is not a viable option. There is no vaccine currently developed for BSE or other TSE's.

7.10.11.2 Sanitation--Although it is unknown whether a contaminated environment plays any role in the spread of BSE, it is suggested that pens having contained BSE-infected animals be cleaned and disinfected. The disinfectants o choice are sodium hydroxide (lye) and sodium hypochlorite, in infected herds it is also advisable that all placentas be removed promptly and buried or incinerated. The calving pens also should be cleaned and disinfected.

7.10.113 Producer Defense---The most effective way to prevent an intruduction of BSE into a herd is not to feed ruminant byproducts to ruminants. As of August 4, 1997, the FDA has a ban in place which prohibits the feeding of most mammlian proteins to ruminants.

7.11 Records Maintenance in a Foreign Animal Disease Outbreak

The APHIS FEDS will be used by the READEO to record information. FEDS a computerized network designed to transmit accurate information rapidly during any emergency disease outbreak. The use of FEDS will allow the READEO to direct its attention to the minute-to-minute business of containing and eradicating the disease.

For an accurate record of the activities, all field supervisors in a READEO task force should maintain a diary. Activities and observations should be recorded in the diary when they occur. Date all documents and enter events by time and date to show a correct chronology.

Enter events as they occur in the diary as well. An accurate history is of considerable value in developing policies and plans for future disease-eradication

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BSE Red book 2.1-45

programs, and it may be important if there is litigation. A diary will be helpful for day-to-day administration of funds, personnel, and equipment. It is also useful as a later reference in preparing reports and summaries of activities.

7.11.1 Daily Reporls Submit daily reports of significant activities to the READEO Director and the VS, Emergency Programs staff Riverdale, MD. (Refer to appendix F for current telephone listings.) Include the following as part of the historical file of an outbreak:

*Maps showing premises where BSE-infected animals were found;

*Inventory of feeds and feed sources;

*Origin of BSE-suspeet and confirmed animals;

*Public information material distributed, newspaper clippings; and,

Administrative reports to support the expenditure of funds, utilization of personnel and equipment, and disposition of excess materials and equip­ment at the end of the program.

7.11.2 Distribution The VS, Emergency Programs staff will distribute reports of significant activities to all AVIC's, State cooperators, and industry cooperators at least weekly. As soon as significant events occur, Emergency Programs will inform all APHIS

will inform all APHIS headquarters units through normal reporting channels. Emergency Programs also will immediately report any significant events to the Deputy Administrator, VS, who will immediately advise the APHIS Administrator, especially of legal or politically important events. A weekly summary report of control and eradication activities will be provided to the APHIS Administrator and the Deputy Administrator, VS. See BSE Response Plan, communications section.

7.11.3 Disposition Records should be maintained until a historical account of the program has been prepared and all pertinent information has been gleaned from the records.

Furthermore, all records should be maintained if there may be legal action pending as a result of the program activities. Usually, administrative records are maintained a minimum of 3 years for audit purposes.

END...TSS



SEE THE INFAMOUSLY FLAWED USDA HARVARD BSE RISK ASSESSMENT AND MY COMMENTS AND THEIR REBUTTAL OF NOT ANSWERING MY QUESTIONS ;



http://www.fsis.usda.gov/PDF/BSE_Risk_Assess_Response_Public_Comments.pdf




Sunday, April 12, 2009
BSE MAD COW TESTING USA 2009 FIGURES Month Number of Tests

Feb 2009 -- 1,891

Jan 2009 -- 4,620



http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse/surveillance/ongoing_surv_results.shtml



SEE FULL TEXT ;



http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/04/bse-mad-cow-testing-usa-2009-figures.html




Monday, May 4, 2009

Back to the Past With New TSE Testing Agricultural Research/May-June 2009



http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/05/back-to-past-with-new-tse-testing.html




Monday, June 01, 2009

Biochemical typing of pathological prion protein in aging cattle with BSE




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/06/biochemical-typing-of-pathological.html




Sunday, June 07, 2009

L-TYPE-BSE, H-TYPE-BSE, C-TYPE-BSE, IBNC-TYPE-BSE, TME, CWD, SCRAPIE, CJD, NORTH AMERICA




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/06/l-type-bse-h-type-bse-c-type-bse-ibnc.html




Sunday, May 10, 2009

Identification and characterization of bovine spongiform encephalopathy cases diagnosed and NOT diagnosed in the United States




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/05/identification-and-characterization-of.html




Sunday, December 28, 2008


MAD COW DISEASE USA DECEMBER 28, 2008 an 8 year review of a failed and flawed policy




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/12/mad-cow-disease-usa-december-28-2008-8.html




Wednesday, August 20, 2008


Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Mad Cow Disease typical and atypical strains, was there a cover-up ?




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/08/bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy-mad.html




Saturday, February 28, 2009

NEW RESULTS ON IDIOPATHIC BRAINSTEM NEURONAL CHROMATOLYSIS "All of the 15 cattle tested showed that the brains had abnormally accumulated PrP" 2009 SEAC 102/2




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-results-on-idiopathic-brainstem.html




Saturday, June 13, 2009

BSE FEED VIOLATIONS USA UPDATE From 01/01/2009 To 06/10/2009




http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/06/bse-feed-violations-usa-update-from.html




Thursday, March 19, 2009



MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF POUNDS OF MAD COW FEED IN COMMERCE USA




http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/03/millions-and-millions-of-pounds-of-mad.html




WHO WILL FOLLOW THE CHILDREN FOR CJD SYMPTOMS ???

Saturday, May 2, 2009

U.S. GOVERNMENT SUES WESTLAND/HALLMARK MEAT OVER USDA CERTIFIED DEADSTOCK DOWNER COW SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM




http://downercattle.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-government-sues-westlandhallmark.html




Transgenic mice expressing porcine prion protein resistant to classical scrapie but susceptible to sheep bovine spongiform encephalopathy and atypical scrapie. Emerg Infect Dis. 2009 Aug; [Epub ahead of print]




http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/07/transgenic-mice-expressing-porcine.html




Thursday, April 9, 2009



Docket No. FDA2002N0031 (formerly Docket No. 2002N0273) RIN 0910AF46 Substances Prohibited From Use in Animal Food or Feed; Final Rule: Proposed




http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/04/docket-no-fda2002n0031-formerly-docket.html




http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/r-calf-and-usa-mad-cow-problem-dont.html#comments




Sunday, April 12, 2009
r-calf and the USA mad cow problem, don't look, don't find, and then blame Canada




http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/r-calf-and-usa-mad-cow-problem-dont.html




http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/cjd-foundation-sides-with-r-calfers-no.html#comments




Sunday, May 10, 2009



Meeting of the Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies Committee On June 12, 2009 (Singeltary submission)




http://tseac.blogspot.com/2009/05/meeting-of-transmissible-spongiform.html




Saturday, June 13, 2009



Monitoring the occurrence of emerging forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United States 2003 revisited 2009

snip...




http://cjdusa.blogspot.com/2009/06/monitoring-occurrence-of-emerging-forms.html




Transgenic mice expressing porcine prion protein resistant to classical scrapie but susceptible to sheep bovine spongiform encephalopathy and atypical scrapie. Emerg Infect Dis. 2009 Aug; [Epub ahead of print]




http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/07/transgenic-mice-expressing-porcine.html




your only fooling yourselves with this stupid ukbsenvcjd only theory, and the BSE methology of the OIE. most any coutnry that went by those same OIE BSE guidelines all went down with BSE.

THE OIE has now shown they are nothing more than a National Trading Brokerage for all strains of animal TSE.

AS i said before, OIE should hang up there jock strap now, since it appears they will buckle every time a country makes some political hay about trade protocol, commodities and futures. IF they are not going to be science based, they should do everyone a favor and dissolve there organization. ...




http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/2006-0011/2006-0011-1.pdf




see full text ;

Docket APHIS-2006-0026 Docket Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Animal Identification and Importation of Commodities Docket Type Rulemaking Document APHIS-2006-0026-0001 Document Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions, Identification of Ruminants and Processing and Importation of Commodities Public Submission APHIS-2006-0026-0012 Public Submission Title Comment from Terry S Singletary




http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=09000064801e47e1




Docket APHIS-2006-0041 Docket Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived from Bovines Commodities Docket Type Rulemaking Document APHIS-2006-0041-0001 Document Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived From Bovines Public Submission APHIS-2006-0041-0028 Public Submission Title Comment from Terry S Singletary

Comment 2006-2007 USA AND OIE POISONING GLOBE WITH BSE MRR POLICY

THE USA is in a most unique situation, one of unknown circumstances with human and animal TSE. THE USA has the most documented TSE in different species to date, with substrains growing in those species (BSE/BASE in cattle and CWD in deer and elk, there is evidence here with different strains), and we know that sheep scrapie has over 20 strains of the typical scrapie with atypical scrapie documented and also BSE is very likely to have passed to sheep. all of which have been rendered and fed back to animals for human and animal consumption, a frightening scenario. WE do not know the outcome, and to play with human life around the globe with the very likely TSE tainted products from the USA, in my opinion is like playing Russian roulette, of long duration, with potential long and enduring consequences, of which once done, cannot be undone. These are the facts as I have come to know through daily and extensive research of TSE over 9 years, since 12/14/97. I do not pretend to have all the answers, but i do know to continue to believe in the ukbsenvcjd only theory of transmission to humans of only this one strain from only this one TSE from only this one part of the globe, will only lead to further failures, and needless exposure to humans from all strains of TSE, and possibly many more needless deaths from TSE via a multitude of proven routes and sources via many studies with primates and rodents and other species.

MY personal belief, since you ask, is that not only the Canadian border, but the USA border, and the Mexican border should be sealed up tighter than a drum for exporting there TSE tainted products, until a validated, 100% sensitive test is available, and all animals for human and animal consumption are tested. all we are doing is the exact same thing the UK did with there mad cow poisoning when they exported it all over the globe, all the while knowing what they were doing. this BSE MRR policy is nothing more than a legal tool to do just exactly what the UK did, thanks to the OIE and GW, it's legal now. and they executed Saddam for poisoning ???

go figure. ...




http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=09000064801f8151




Docket APHIS-2006-0041 Docket Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived from Bovines Commodities Docket Type Rulemaking Document APHIS-2006-0041-0001 Document Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived From Bovines Public Submission APHIS-2006-0041-0028.1 Public Submission Title Attachment to Singletary comment

January 28, 2007

Greetings APHIS,

I would kindly like to submit the following to ;

BSE; MRR; IMPORTATION OF LIVE BOVINES AND PRODUCTS DERIVED FROM BOVINES [Docket No. APHIS-2006-0041] RIN 0579-AC01




http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/ContentViewer?objectId=09000064801f8152&disposition=attachment&contentType=msw8




Monday, June 01, 2009
Biochemical typing of pathological prion protein in aging cattle with BSE

SOMETHING TO PONDER ???

O.K. confusious asks, IF all these new atypical BSEs i.e. new strains of mad cow disease is just an 'OLD COW PRION DISEASE', why then can not the 'old human prion disease' such as the sporadic CJD, be from an 'old cow prion disease', same as the nvCJD 'young people mad cow disease' (which also happens in 74 year old), but why cannot the 'old cow prion diseases', i.e. l-BSE, h-BSE, and ibncBSE, cause the 'old people prion disease', which looks like sporadic CJD. seems that is what some of the pathology is showing ???

OH, that probably makes too much sense, and that the only answer could be that it's all just a happenstance of bad luck and or a spontaneous event, that just happens out of the clear blue sky $$$

IF this is the case, then where are all the SPONTANEOUS BSE CASES OF MAD COW DISEASE IN THE U.S.A., AND WHERE HAVE THEY BEEN BURIED IN THE USA OVER THE LAST 25 YEARS ???




http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/06/biochemical-typing-of-pathological.html




Terry S. Singeltary Sr.

P.O. Box 42

Bacliff, Texas USA 77518

BSE CASE CONFIRMED IN ALBERTA OTTAWA, May 15, 2009

-------------------- BSE-L@LISTS.AEGEE.ORG --------------------


BSE CASE CONFIRMED IN ALBERTA OTTAWA, May 15, 2009 -

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in an 80-month-old dairy cow from Alberta. No part of the animal's carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems.

The animal's birth farm has been identified, and an investigation is underway. The age and location of the infected animal are consistent with previous cases detected in Canada.

This case was detected through the national BSE surveillance program, which continues to play an important role in Canada's strategy to manage BSE.

Canada remains a Controlled Risk country for BSE, as recognized by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). Accordingly, this case should not affect exports of Canadian cattle or beef.

- 30 -

For information:

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Media relations: 613-773-6600


http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/anima/heasan/disemala/bseesb/ab2009/16notavie.shtml



Sunday, May 10, 2009

Identification and characterization of bovine spongiform encephalopathy cases diagnosed and not diagnosed in the United States



http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/05/identification-and-characterization-of.html



TSS


-------------------- BSE-L@LISTS.AEGEE.ORG --------------------



The Canadian system is much better than the USA. at least they know. the USA just SHOOTS, SHOVELS, AND SHUTS UP I.E. THE SSS POLICY.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Identification and characterization of bovine spongiform encephalopathy cases diagnosed and not diagnosed in the United States


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/05/identification-and-characterization-of.html



Scientific Report of the European Food Safety Authority on the Assessment of the Geographical BSE Risk (GBR) of the United States of America (USA) Question number: EFSA-Q-2003-083 Adopted date: 1 July 2004 Summary (0.1Mb)

Document (0.2Mb)

Summary

The European Food Safety Authority and its Scientific Expert Working Group on the Assessment of the Geographical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Risk (GBR) were asked by the European Commission (EC) to provide an up-to-date scientific report on the GBR in the United States of America, i.e. the likelihood of the presence of one or more cattle being infected with BSE, pre-clinically as well as clinically, in USA. This scientific report addresses the GBR of USA as assessed in 2004 based on data covering the period 1980-2003.

The BSE agent was probably imported into USA and could have reached domestic cattle in the middle of the eighties. These cattle imported in the mid eighties could have been rendered in the late eighties and therefore led to an internal challenge in the early nineties. It is possible that imported meat and bone meal (MBM) into the USA reached domestic cattle and leads to an internal challenge in the early nineties.

A processing risk developed in the late 80s/early 90s when cattle imports from BSE risk countries were slaughtered or died and were processed (partly) into feed, together with some imports of MBM. This risk continued to exist, and grew significantly in the mid 90’s when domestic cattle, infected by imported MBM, reached processing. Given the low stability of the system, the risk increased over the years with continued imports of cattle and MBM from BSE risk countries.

EFSA concludes that the current GBR level of USA is III, i.e. it is likely but not confirmed that domestic cattle are (clinically or pre-clinically) infected with the BSE-agent. As long as there are no significant changes in rendering or feeding, the stability remains extremely/very unstable. Thus, the probability of cattle to be (pre-clinically or clinically) infected with the BSE-agent persistently increases.


http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/efsa_locale-1178620753812_1178620779461.htm



http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/Scientific_Document/sr03_biohaz02_usa_report_annex_en1.pdf?ssbinary=true



http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/Scientific_Document/sr03_biohaz02_usa_report_v2_en1.pdf?ssbinary=true



http://www.efsa.europa.eu/EFSA/Scientific_Document/sr03_biohaz02_usa_report_summary_en1.pdf?ssbinary=true



Scientific Report of the European Food Safety Authority on the Assessment of the Geographical BSE-Risk (GBR) of CANADA Question N° EFSA-Q-2003-083 Adopted July 2004 Summary The European Food Safety Authority and its Scientific Expert Working Group on the Assessment of the Geographical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Risk (GBR) were asked by the European Commission (EC), to provide an up-to-date scientific report on the GBR in Canada, i.e. the likelihood of the presence of one or more cattle being infected with BSE, pre-clinically as well as clinically, in Canada. This scientific report addresses the GBR of Canada as assessed in 2004 based on data covering the period 1980-2003. The BSE agent was probably imported into the country middle of the eighties and could have reached domestic cattle in the early nineties. These cattle imported in the mid eighties could have been rendered in the late eighties and therefore led to an internal challenge in the early 90s. It is possible that imported meat and bone meal (MBM) into Canada reached domestic cattle and led to an internal challenge in the early 90s. A certain risk that BSE-infected cattle entered processing in Canada, and were at least partly rendered for feed, occurred in the early 1990s when cattle imported from UK in the mid 80s could have been slaughtered. This risk continued to exist, and grew significantly in the mid 90's when domestic cattle, infected by imported MBM, reached processing. Given the low stability of the system, the risk increased over the years with continued imports of cattle and MBM from BSE risk countries. EFSA concludes that the current GBR level of Canada is III, i.e. it is confirmed at a lower level that domestic cattle are (clinically or pre-clinically) infected with the BSE-agent. As long as the system remains unstable, it is expected that the GBR continues to grow, even if no additional external challenges occur.


http://www.mvo.nl/wetgeving-dierlijk-vet/onderzoek/download/EFSA%20on%20BSE%20risk%20Canada%20jul%202004.pdf



Scientific Report of the European Food Safety Authority on the Assessment of the Geographical BSE-Risk (GBR) of MEXICO Question N° EFSA-Q-2003-083 Adopted July 2004 Summary The European Food Safety Authority and its Scientific Expert Working Group on the Assessment of the Geographical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Risk (GBR) were asked by the European Commission (EC) to provide an up-to-date scientific report on the GBR in Mexico, i.e. the likelihood of the presence of one or more cattle being infected with BSE, pre-clinically as well as clinically, in Mexico. This scientific report addresses the GBR of Mexico as assessed in 2004 based on data covering the period 1980-2003. The BSE agent was probably imported into Mexico and could have reached domestic cattle. These cattle imported could have been rendered and therefore led to an internal challenge in the mid to late 1990's. It is possible that imported meat and bone meal (MBM) into Mexico reached domestic cattle and leads to an internal challenge around 1993. It is likely that BSE infectivity entered processing at the time of imported 'at - risk' MBM (1993) and at the time of slaughter of imported live 'at - risk' cattle (mid to late 1990s). The high level of external challenge is maintained throughout the reference period, and the system has not been made stable. Thus it is likely that BSE infectivity was recycled and propagated from approximately 1993. The risk has since grown consistently due to a maintained internal and external challenge and lack of a stable system. EFSA concludes that the current geographical BSE risk (GBR) level is III, i.e. it is likely but not confirmed that domestic cattle are (clinically or pre-clinically) infected with the BSEagent. The GBR is likely to increase due to continued internal and external challenge, coupled with a very unstable system.


http://www.mvo.nl/wetgeving-dierlijk-vet/onderzoek/download/EFSA%20on%20BSE%20risk%20Mexico%20jul%202004.pdf



Saturday, April 11, 2009

CJD FOUNDATION SIDES WITH R-CALFERS NO BSE OR HUMAN TSE THERE OF IN USA 'don't be fooled'


http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/cjd-foundation-sides-with-r-calfers-no.html



Owner and Corporation Plead Guilty to Defrauding Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Surveillance Program

An Arizona meat processing company and its owner pled guilty in February 2007 to charges of theft of Government funds, mail fraud, and wire fraud. The owner and his company defrauded the BSE Surveillance Program when they falsified BSE Surveillance Data Collection Forms and then submitted payment requests to USDA for the services. In addition to the targeted sample population (those cattle that were more than 30 months old or had other risk factors for BSE), the owner submitted to USDA, or caused to be submitted, BSE obex (brain stem) samples from healthy USDA-inspected cattle. As a result, the owner fraudulently received approximately $390,000. Sentencing is scheduled for May 2007.

snip...

Topics that will be covered in ongoing or planned reviews under Goal 1 include:

soundness of BSE maintenance sampling (APHIS),

implementation of Performance-Based Inspection System enhancements for specified risk material (SRM) violations and improved inspection controls over SRMs (FSIS and APHIS),

snip...

The findings and recommendations from these efforts will be covered in future semiannual reports as the relevant audits and investigations are completed.

4 USDA OIG SEMIANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS FY 2007 1st Half


http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/sarc070619.pdf



-MORE Office of the United States Attorney District of Arizona FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For Information Contact Public Affairs February 16, 2007 WYN HORNBUCKLE Telephone: (602) 514-7625 Cell: (602) 525-2681

CORPORATION AND ITS PRESIDENT PLEAD GUILTY TO DEFRAUDING GOVERNMENT'S MAD COW DISEASE SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM

PHOENIX -- Farm Fresh Meats, Inc. and Roland Emerson Farabee, 55, of Maricopa, Arizona, pleaded guilty to stealing $390,000 in government funds, mail fraud and wire fraud, in federal district court in Phoenix. U.S. Attorney Daniel Knauss stated, "The integrity of the system that tests for mad cow disease relies upon the honest cooperation of enterprises like Farm Fresh Meats. Without that honest cooperation, consumers both in the U.S. and internationally are at risk. We want to thank the USDA's Office of Inspector General for their continuing efforts to safeguard the public health and enforce the law." Farm Fresh Meats and Farabee were charged by Information with theft of government funds, mail fraud and wire fraud. According to the Information, on June 7, 2004, Farabee, on behalf of Farm Fresh Meats, signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (the "USDA Agreement") to collect obex samples from cattle at high risk of mad cow disease (the "Targeted Cattle Population"). The Targeted Cattle Population consisted of the following cattle: cattle over thirty months of age; nonambulatory cattle; cattle exhibiting signs of central nervous system disorders; cattle exhibiting signs of mad cow disease; and dead cattle. Pursuant to the USDA Agreement, the USDA agreed to pay Farm Fresh Meats $150 per obex sample for collecting obex samples from cattle within the Targeted Cattle Population, and submitting the obex samples to a USDA laboratory for mad cow disease testing. Farm Fresh Meats further agreed to maintain in cold storage the sampled cattle carcasses and heads until the test results were received by Farm Fresh Meats.

Evidence uncovered during the government's investigation established that Farm Fresh Meats and Farabee submitted samples from cattle outside the Targeted Cattle Population. Specifically, Farm Fresh Meats and Farabee submitted, or caused to be submitted, obex samples from healthy, USDA inspected cattle, in order to steal government moneys.

Evidence collected also demonstrated that Farm Fresh Meats and Farabee failed to maintain cattle carcasses and heads pending test results and falsified corporate books and records to conceal their malfeasance. Such actions, to the extent an obex sample tested positive (fortunately, none did), could have jeopardized the USDA's ability to identify the diseased animal and pinpoint its place of origin. On Wednesday, February 14, 2007, Farm Fresh Meats and Farabee pleaded guilty to stealing government funds and using the mails and wires to effect the scheme. According to their guilty pleas:

(a) Farm Fresh Meats collected, and Farabee directed others to collect, obex samples from cattle outside the Targeted Cattle Population, which were not subject to payment by the USDA;

(b) Farm Fresh Meats 2 and Farabee caused to be submitted payment requests to the USDA knowing that the requests were based on obex samples that were not subject to payment under the USDA Agreement;

(c) Farm Fresh Meats completed and submitted, and Farabee directed others to complete and submit, BSE Surveillance Data Collection Forms to the USDA's testing laboratory that were false and misleading;

(d) Farm Fresh Meats completed and submitted, and Farabee directed others to complete and submit, BSE Surveillance Submission Forms filed with the USDA that were false and misleading;

(e) Farm Fresh Meats falsified, and Farabee directed others to falsify, internal Farm Fresh Meats documents to conceal the fact that Farm Fresh Meats was seeking and obtaining payment from the USDA for obex samples obtained from cattle outside the Targeted Cattle Population; and

(f) Farm Fresh Meats failed to comply with, and Farabee directed others to fail to comply with, the USDA Agreement by discarding cattle carcasses and heads prior to receiving BSE test results. A conviction for theft of government funds carries a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. Mail fraud and wire fraud convictions carry a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment. Convictions for the above referenced violations also carry a maximum fine of $250,000 for individuals and $500,000 for organizations. In determining an actual sentence, Judge Earl H. Carroll will consult the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, which provide appropriate sentencing ranges. The judge, however, is not bound by those guidelines in determining a sentence.

Sentencing is set before Judge Earl H. Carroll on May 14, 2007. The investigation in this case was conducted by Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alejandro Quintero, United States Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General. The prosecution is being handled by Robert Long, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Arizona, Phoenix. CASE NUMBER: CR-07-00160-PHX-EHC RELEASE NUMBER: 2007-051(Farabee) # # #


http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/az/press_releases/2007/2007-051(Farabee).pdf



Thu Dec 6, 2007 11:38

FDA IN CRISIS MODE, AMERICAN LIVES AT RISK


http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/fs/food-disease/news/dec0407fda.html



FDA SCIENCE AND MISSION AT RISK


http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/ac/07/briefing/2007-4329b_02_01_FDA%20Report%20on%20Science%20and%20Technology.pdf



10,000,000+ LBS. of PROHIBITED BANNED MAD COW FEED I.E. BLOOD LACED MBM IN COMMERCE USA 2007

Date: March 21, 2007 at 2:27 pm PST

RECALLS AND FIELD CORRECTIONS: VETERINARY MEDICINES -- CLASS II

___________________________________

PRODUCT

Bulk cattle feed made with recalled Darling's 85% Blood Meal, Flash Dried, Recall # V-024-2007

CODE

Cattle feed delivered between 01/12/2007 and 01/26/2007

RECALLING FIRM/MANUFACTURER

Pfeiffer, Arno, Inc, Greenbush, WI. by conversation on February 5, 2007.

Firm initiated recall is ongoing.

REASON

Blood meal used to make cattle feed was recalled because it was cross-contaminated with prohibited bovine meat and bone meal that had been manufactured on common equipment and labeling did not bear cautionary BSE statement.

VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE

42,090 lbs.

DISTRIBUTION

WI

___________________________________

PRODUCT

Custom dairy premix products: MNM ALL PURPOSE Pellet, HILLSIDE/CDL Prot-Buffer Meal, LEE, M.-CLOSE UP PX Pellet, HIGH DESERT/ GHC LACT Meal, TATARKA, M CUST PROT Meal, SUNRIDGE/CDL PROTEIN Blend, LOURENZO, K PVM DAIRY Meal, DOUBLE B DAIRY/GHC LAC Mineral, WEST PIONT/GHC CLOSEUP Mineral, WEST POINT/GHC LACT Meal, JENKS, J/COMPASS PROTEIN Meal, COPPINI - 8# SPECIAL DAIRY Mix, GULICK, L-LACT Meal (Bulk), TRIPLE J - PROTEIN/LACTATION, ROCK CREEK/GHC MILK Mineral, BETTENCOURT/GHC S.SIDE MK-MN, BETTENCOURT #1/GHC MILK MINR, V&C DAIRY/GHC LACT Meal, VEENSTRA, F/GHC LACT Meal, SMUTNY, A-BYPASS ML W/SMARTA, Recall # V-025-2007

CODE

The firm does not utilize a code - only shipping documentation with commodity and weights identified.

RECALLING FIRM/MANUFACTURER

Rangen, Inc, Buhl, ID, by letters on February 13 and 14, 2007. Firm initiated recall is complete.

REASON

Products manufactured from bulk feed containing blood meal that was cross contaminated with prohibited meat and bone meal and the labeling did not bear cautionary BSE statement.

VOLUME OF PRODUCT IN COMMERCE

9,997,976 lbs.

DISTRIBUTION

ID and NV

END OF ENFORCEMENT REPORT FOR MARCH 21, 2007


http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/enforce/2007/ENF00996.html



Thursday, March 19, 2009


MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF POUNDS OF MAD COW FEED IN COMMERCE USA WITH ONGOING 12 YEARS OF DENIAL NOW, WHY IN THE WORLD DO WE TO TALK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE $$$


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/03/millions-and-millions-of-pounds-of-mad.html



P04.27

Experimental BSE Infection of Non-human Primates: Efficacy of the Oral Route

Holznagel, E1; Yutzy, B1; Deslys, J-P2; Lasmézas, C2; Pocchiari, M3; Ingrosso, L3; Bierke, P4; Schulz-Schaeffer, W5; Motzkus, D6; Hunsmann, G6; Löwer, J1 1Paul-Ehrlich-Institut, Germany; 2Commissariat à l´Energie Atomique, France; 3Instituto Superiore di Sanità, Italy; 4Swedish Institute for Infectious Disease control, Sweden; 5Georg August University, Germany; 6German Primate Center, Germany

Background:

In 2001, a study was initiated in primates to assess the risk for humans to contract BSE through contaminated food. For this purpose, BSE brain was titrated in cynomolgus monkeys.

Aims:

The primary objective is the determination of the minimal infectious dose (MID50) for oral exposure to BSE in a simian model, and, by in doing this, to assess the risk for humans. Secondly, we aimed at examining the course of the disease to identify possible biomarkers.

Methods:

Groups with six monkeys each were orally dosed with lowering amounts of BSE brain: 16g, 5g, 0.5g, 0.05g, and 0.005g. In a second titration study, animals were intracerebrally (i.c.) dosed (50, 5, 0.5, 0.05, and 0.005 mg).

Results:

In an ongoing study, a considerable number of high-dosed macaques already developed simian vCJD upon oral or intracerebral exposure or are at the onset of the clinical phase. However, there are differences in the clinical course between orally and intracerebrally infected animals that may influence the detection of biomarkers.

Conclusions:

Simian vCJD can be easily triggered in cynomolgus monkeys on the oral route using less than 5 g BSE brain homogenate. The difference in the incubation period between 5 g oral and 5 mg i.c. is only 1 year (5 years versus 4 years). However, there are rapid progressors among orally dosed monkeys that develop simian vCJD as fast as intracerebrally inoculated animals.

The work referenced was performed in partial fulfilment of the study "BSE in primates" supported by the EU (QLK1-2002-01096).


http://www.prion2007.com/pdf/Prion%20Book%20of%20Abstracts.pdf



look at the table and you'll see that as little as 1 mg (or 0.001 gm) caused 7% (1 of 14) of the cows to come down with BSE;

Risk of oral infection with bovine spongiform encephalopathy agent in primates

Corinne Ida Lasmézas, Emmanuel Comoy, Stephen Hawkins, Christian Herzog, Franck Mouthon, Timm Konold, Frédéric Auvré, Evelyne Correia, Nathalie Lescoutra-Etchegaray, Nicole Salès, Gerald Wells, Paul Brown, Jean-Philippe Deslys Summary The uncertain extent of human exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)--which can lead to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD)--is compounded by incomplete knowledge about the efficiency of oral infection and the magnitude of any bovine-to-human biological barrier to transmission. We therefore investigated oral transmission of BSE to non-human primates. We gave two macaques a 5 g oral dose of brain homogenate from a BSE-infected cow. One macaque developed vCJD-like neurological disease 60 months after exposure, whereas the other remained free of disease at 76 months. On the basis of these findings and data from other studies, we made a preliminary estimate of the food exposure risk for man, which provides additional assurance that existing public health measures can prevent transmission of BSE to man.

snip...

BSE bovine brain inoculum

100 g 10 g 5 g 1 g 100 mg 10 mg 1 mg 0·1 mg 0·01 mg

Primate (oral route)* 1/2 (50%)

Cattle (oral route)* 10/10 (100%) 7/9 (78%) 7/10 (70%) 3/15 (20%) 1/15 (7%) 1/15 (7%)

RIII mice (ic ip route)* 17/18 (94%) 15/17 (88%) 1/14 (7%)

PrPres biochemical detection

The comparison is made on the basis of calibration of the bovine inoculum used in our study with primates against a bovine brain inoculum with a similar PrPres concentration that was

inoculated into mice and cattle.8 *Data are number of animals positive/number of animals surviving at the time of clinical onset of disease in the first positive animal (%). The accuracy of

bioassays is generally judged to be about plus or minus 1 log. ic ip=intracerebral and intraperitoneal.

Table 1: Comparison of transmission rates in primates and cattle infected orally with similar BSE brain inocula

Published online January 27, 2005


http://www.thelancet.com/journal/journal.isa



It is clear that the designing scientists must

also have shared Mr Bradley's surprise at the results because all the dose

levels right down to 1 gram triggered infection.


http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s145d.pdf



6. It also appears to me that Mr Bradley's answer (that it would take less than say 100 grams) was probably given with the benefit of hindsight; particularly if one considers that later in the same answer Mr Bradley expresses his surprise that it could take as little of 1 gram of brain to cause BSE by the oral route within the same species. This information did not become available until the "attack rate"

experiment had been completed in 1995/96. This was a titration experiment designed to ascertain the infective dose. A range of dosages was used to ensure that the actual result was within both a lower and an upper limit within the study and the designing scientists would not have expected all the dose levels to trigger infection. The dose ranges chosen by the most informed scientists at that time ranged from 1 gram to three times one hundred grams. It is clear that the designing scientists must have also shared Mr Bradley's surprise at the results because all the dose levels right down to 1 gram triggered infection.


http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/ws/s147f.pdf



Friday, November 21, 2008

Plasma & Serum Proteins Receive Continued FDA Approval


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2008/11/plasma-serum-proteins-receive-continued.html



http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/



Thursday, November 27, 2008 Prion diseases are efficiently transmitted by blood transfusion in sheep


http://vcjdblood.blogspot.com/2008/11/prion-diseases-are-efficiently.html



Scientists warn of first ever case of human mad cow disease from blood plasma


http://vcjdtransfusion.blogspot.com/2009/02/scientists-warn-of-first-ever-case-of.html



Saturday, February 21, 2009 Renderers say industry not prepared for FDA feed ban rule ??? WHAT, IT'S 2009 FOR PETE'S SAKE $$$ Two recent articles caught my eye ;

Renderers say industry not prepared for FDA feed ban rule

Food Chemical News

February 2, 2009

and

BSE, rendering relate to human safety

Emma Struve 02/17/2009


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/02/renderers-say-industry-not-prepared-for.html





Monday, May 4, 2009

Back to the Past With New TSE Testing Agricultural Research/May-June 2009



http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/05/back-to-past-with-new-tse-testing.html




TSS

Back to the Past With New TSE Testing Agricultural Research/May-June 2009

ARS ET AL STILL IN DENIAL ABOUT MAD COW DISEASE IN U.S.A.

Agricultural Research/May-June 2009

Back to the Past With New TSE Testing

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are rare—but lethal— neurodegenerative disorders that affect a range of mammals, including humans. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)—or “mad cow disease”—is one TSE that has had significant economic and public health impact. The TSEs in the United States are found in sheep, goats, elk, and deer.

TSE epidemiology is complicated by the fact that a definitive diagnosis cannot be made until after an animal has died. ARS chemist Eric Nicholson and veterinary medical officer Robert Kunkle have found a way to facilitate postmortem TSE diagnoses—even when tissue samples are in short supply. Proteins called “prions” are produced in all animals. But the development of abnormal prions is believed to prompt the onset of TSE-related damage to brain tissue. If an animal dies from a TSE infection, both abnormal and healthy prions can be found in its body tissues.

Researchers check tissues for abnormal prions with either Western blotting (WB) or immunohistochemistry (IHC). WB is used for fresh or frozen tissues, and IHC is used to test formalin- fixed tissue that has never been frozen. Sometimes only formalin-fixed tissues are available for testing—a situation the BSE surveillance program faced in 2005, when an entire tissue sample was inadvertently preserved in formalin. In that instance, initial IHC results were not conclusive, but there were no other fresh or frozen tissue samples available for WB testing. Nicholson and Kunkle, who work at the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, wanted to help scientists avoid similar situations in the future. They found a way to extract and identify abnormal prions in formalin-fixed tissue by using a combination of mild detergent, a series of freeze-boil cycles, and enzyme digestion. Initial results indicate that the accuracy of this method begins to decline 2 years after the tissue is first preserved, and is completely lost at the end of 6 years. “With this technique, we can easily distinguish between tissues from TSE-positive and TSE-negative animals,” Nicholson says. “And it requires only a minimal adaptation of existing Western blotting procedures.”

Nicholson and Kunkle also devised a way to use WB to test for TSE in tissues that had been fixed in formalin and preserved in paraffin. Their results equaled—and at times even exceeded— the effectiveness of WB analysis for tissues that had only been fixed in formalin.

These combined results add to the tools animal scientists can use to study the development and spread of TSEs. Their findings will facilitate WB testing of tissue samples that were originally archived for microscopy examination and should simplify preservation of samples collected in the field.

WB and IHC analyses can also be conducted on the same preserved sample—a breakthrough that could significantly enhance ongoing TSE research in the field and in the lab.—By Ann Perry, ARS.

This research is part of Animal Health, an ARS national program (#103) described on the World Wide Web at www.nps. ars.usda.gov.

Eric M. Nicholson and Robert A. Kunkle are with the USDAARS National Animal Disease Center, 2300 Dayton Ave., Ames, IA 50010; phone (515) 663-7443 [Nicholson], (515) 663-7190 [Kunkle], fax (515) 663-7458, e-mail mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:eric.nicholson@ars.usda. gov, mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:robert.kunkle@ars.usda.gov. ?

Chemist Eric Nicholson (left) and veterinary medical officer Robert Kunkle discuss a Western blot image from a TSE test of formalinfixed tissues.

Agricultural Research/May-June 2009

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/may09/tse0509.pdf


>>> The TSEs in the United States are found in sheep, goats, elk, and deer. <<<


QUESTIONs PLEASE ;



IS Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy i.e. TME, not a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy ?


DID the mad cow in TEXAS (the h-BSE atypical that WAS FINALLY confirmed), and the h-BSE atypical in Alabama, are these not confirmed cases of a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy ?



NOW, one could also argue that this was another cases of mad cow disease in Texas, one that was cover-up ;


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Statement


May 4, 2004 Media Inquiries: 301-827-6242 Consumer Inquiries: 888-INFO-FDA


Statement on Texas Cow With Central Nervous System Symptoms


On Friday, April 30 th , the Food and Drug Administration learned that a cow with central nervous system symptoms had been killed and shipped to a processor for rendering into animal protein for use in animal feed. FDA, which is responsible for the safety of animal feed, immediately began an investigation. On Friday and throughout the weekend, FDA investigators inspected the slaughterhouse, the rendering facility, the farm where the animal came from, and the processor that initially received the cow from the slaughterhouse. FDA's investigation showed that the animal in question had already been rendered into "meat and bone meal" (a type of protein animal feed). Over the weekend FDA was able to track down all the implicated material. That material is being held by the firm, which is cooperating fully with FDA. Cattle with central nervous system symptoms are of particular interest because cattle with bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, also known as "mad cow disease," can exhibit such symptoms. In this case, there is no way now to test for BSE. But even if the cow had BSE, FDA's animal feed rule would prohibit the feeding of its rendered protein to other ruminant animals (e.g., cows, goats, sheep, bison). FDA is sending a letter to the firm summarizing its findings and informing the firm that FDA will not object to use of this material in swine feed only. If it is not used in swine feed, this material will be destroyed. Pigs have been shown not to be susceptible to BSE. If the firm agrees to use the material for swine feed only, FDA will track the material all the way through the supply chain from the processor to the farm to ensure that the feed is properly monitored and used only as feed for pigs. To protect the U.S. against BSE, FDA works to keep certain mammalian protein out of animal feed for cattle and other ruminant animals. FDA established its animal feed rule in 1997 after the BSE epidemic in the U.K. showed that the disease spreads by feeding infected ruminant protein to cattle. Under the current regulation, the material from this Texas cow is not allowed in feed for cattle or other ruminant animals. FDA's action specifying that the material go only into swine feed means also that it will not be fed to poultry. FDA is committed to protecting the U.S. from BSE and collaborates closely with the U.S. Department of Agriculture on all BSE issues. The animal feed rule provides crucial protection against the spread of BSE, but it is only one of several such firewalls. FDA will soon be improving the animal feed rule, to make this strong system even stronger. ####


http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/news/2004/new01061.html



I wouldn't doubt that the APHIS/USDA et al even try to persuade the WHO at the next meeting to exempt atypical BSE in the USA as with the Nor-98 atypical scrapie they are trying to get exempt. they are so out of touch with reality on the true extent of mad cow disease in the USA that i think they now believe their own lies. ...TSS

Saturday, May 2, 2009

APHIS AND WHO PLAN TO EXEMPT THE ATYPICAL SCRAPIE NOR-98 FROM REGULATIONS AT MEETING THIS MONTH


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/05/aphis-and-who-plan-to-exempt-atypical.html


Tuesday, April 28, 2009 Nor98-like Scrapie in the United States of America


http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2009/04/nor98-like-scrapie-in-united-states-of.html



hmm, were these not Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy cases ???



IS THERE A SCRAPIE-LIKE DISEASE IN CATTLE ?

In April of 1985, a mink rancher in Wisconsin reported a debilitating neurologic disease in his herd which we diagnosed as TME by histopathologic findings confirmed by experimental transmission to mink and squirrel monkeys.

The rancher was a ''dead stock'' feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle and a few horses. Sheep had never been fed. We believe that these findings may indicate the presence of a previously unrecognized scrapie-like disease in cattle and wish to alert dairy practitioners to this possibility.

snip...

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTH ANNUAL WESTERN CONFERENCE FOR FOOD ANIMAL VETERINARY MEDICINE, University of Arizona, March 17-19, 1986


http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m09a/tab01.pdf


Over the next 8-10 weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME. Since previous incidences of TME were associated with common or shared feeding practices, we obtained a careful history of feed ingredients used over the past 12-18 months. ***The rancher was a “dead stock” feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle and a few horses. Sheep had never been fed.***

snip...end


http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/mb/m09/tab05.pdf


Saturday, May 2, 2009

U.S. GOVERNMENT SUES WESTLAND/HALLMARK MEAT OVER USDA CERTIFIED DEADSTOCK DOWNER COW SCHOOL LUNCH PROGRAM


http://downercattle.blogspot.com/2009/05/us-government-sues-westlandhallmark.html


Wednesday, February 11, 2009 Atypical BSE North America Update February 2009 Both of the BSE cases ascertained in the US native-born cattle were atypical cases (H-type), which contributed to the initial ambiguity of the diagnosis. 174, 185 In Canada, there have been 2 atypical BSE cases in addition to the 14 cases of the classic UK strain of BSE2: one was the H-type, and the other was of the L-type.198 snip...end source : Enhanced Abstract Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association January 1, 2009, Vol. 234, No. 1, Pages 59-72 Bovine spongiform encephalopathy Jane L. Harman, DVM, PhD; Christopher J. Silva, PhD


http://avmajournals.avma.org/doi/ref/10.2460/javma.234.1.59


Atypical BSE North America Update February 2009


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/02/atypical-bse-north-america-update.html


I ask Professor Kong ;

Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:37 PM Subject: RE: re--Chronic Wating Disease (CWD) and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies (BSE): Public Health Risk Assessment

''IS the h-BSE more virulent than typical BSE as well, or the same as cBSE, or less virulent than cBSE? just curious.....''

Professor Kong reply ;

.....snip

''As to the H-BSE, we do not have sufficient data to say one way or another, but we have found that H-BSE can infect humans. I hope we could publish these data once the study is complete. Thanks for your interest.''

Best regards, Qingzhong Kong, PhD Associate Professor Department of Pathology Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 44106 USA

END...TSS

I look forward to further transmission studies, and a true ENHANCED BSE/atypical BSE surveillance program put forth testing all cattle for human and animal consumption for 5 years. a surveillance program that uses the most sensitive TSE testing, and has the personnel that knows how to use them, and can be trusted. I look forward to a stringent mad cow feed ban being put forth, and then strictly enforced. we need a forced, not voluntary feed ban, an enhanced feed ban at that, especially excluding blood. we need some sort of animal traceability. no more excuses about privacy. if somebody is putting out a product that is killing folks and or has the potential to kill you, then everybody needs to know who they are, and where that product came from. same with hospitals, i think medical incidents in all states should be recorded, and made public, when it comes to something like a potential accidental transmission exposure event. so if someone is out there looking at a place to go have surgery done, if you have several hospitals having these type 'accidental exposure events', than you can go some place else. it only makes sense. somewhere along the road, the consumer lost control, and just had to take whatever they were given, and then charged these astronomical prices. some where along the line the consumer just lost interest, especially on a long incubating disease such as mad cow disease i.e. Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy. like i said before, there is much more to the mad cow story than bovines and eating a hamburger, we must start focusing on all TSE in all species. ...TSS

Month Number of Tests

Feb 2009 -- 1,891

Jan 2009 -- 4,620


http://www.aphis.usda.gov/newsroom/hot_issues/bse/surveillance/ongoing_surv_results.shtml


P02.35

Molecular Features of the Protease-resistant Prion Protein (PrPres) in H-type BSE

Biacabe, A-G1; Jacobs, JG2; Gavier-Widén, D3; Vulin, J1; Langeveld, JPM2; Baron, TGM1 1AFSSA, France; 2CIDC-Lelystad, Netherlands; 3SVA, Sweden

Western blot analyses of PrPres accumulating in the brain of BSE-infected cattle have demonstrated 3 different molecular phenotypes regarding to the apparent molecular masses and glycoform ratios of PrPres bands. We initially described isolates (H-type BSE) essentially characterized by higher PrPres molecular mass and decreased levels of the diglycosylated PrPres band, in contrast to the classical type of BSE. This type is also distinct from another BSE phenotype named L-type BSE, or also BASE (for Bovine Amyloid Spongiform Encephalopathy), mainly characterized by a low representation of the diglycosylated PrPres band as well as a lower PrPres molecular mass. Retrospective molecular studies in France of all available BSE cases older than 8 years old and of part of the other cases identified since the beginning of the exhaustive surveillance of the disease in 20001 allowed to identify 7 H-type BSE cases, among 594 BSE cases that could be classified as classical, L- or H-type BSE. By Western blot analysis of H-type PrPres, we described a remarkable specific feature with antibodies raised against the C-terminal region of PrP that demonstrated the existence of a more C-terminal cleaved form of PrPres (named PrPres#2 ), in addition to the usual PrPres form (PrPres #1). In the unglycosylated form, PrPres #2 migrates at about 14 kDa, compared to 20 kDa for PrPres #1. The proportion of the PrPres#2 in cattle seems to by higher compared to the PrPres#1. Furthermore another PK-resistant fragment at about 7 kDa was detected by some more N-terminal antibodies and presumed to be the result of cleavages of both N- and C-terminal parts of PrP. These singular features were maintained after transmission of the disease to C57Bl/6 mice. The identification of these two additional PrPres fragments (PrPres #2 and 7kDa band) reminds features reported respectively in sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and in Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker (GSS) syndrome in humans.


http://www.neuroprion.com/pdf_docs/conferences/prion2007/abstract_book.pdf


Research Project: Study of Atypical Bse Location: Virus and Prion Diseases of Livestock

Project Number: 3625-32000-086-05 Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Sep 15, 2004 End Date: Sep 14, 2009

Objective: The objective of this cooperative research project with Dr. Maria Caramelli from the Italian BSE Reference Laboratory in Turin, Italy, is to conduct comparative studies with the U.S. bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) isolate and the atypical BSE isolates identified in Italy. The studies will cover the following areas: 1. Evaluation of present diagnostics tools used in the U.S. for the detection of atypical BSE cases. 2. Molecular comparison of the U.S. BSE isolate and other typical BSE isolates with atypical BSE cases. 3. Studies on transmissibility and tissue distribution of atypical BSE isolates in cattle and other species.

Approach: This project will be done as a Specific Cooperative Agreement with the Italian BSE Reference Laboratory, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, in Turin, Italy. It is essential for the U.S. BSE surveillance program to analyze the effectiveness of the U.S diagnostic tools for detection of atypical cases of BSE. Molecular comparisons of the U.S. BSE isolate with atypical BSE isolates will provide further characterization of the U.S. BSE isolate. Transmission studies are already underway using brain homogenates from atypical BSE cases into mice, cattle and sheep. It will be critical to see whether the atypical BSE isolates behave similarly to typical BSE isolates in terms of transmissibility and disease pathogenesis. If transmission occurs, tissue distribution comparisons will be made between cattle infected with the atypical BSE isolate and the U.S. BSE isolate. Differences in tissue distribution could require new regulations regarding specific risk material (SRM) removal.


http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/projects/projects.htm?ACCN_NO=408490


Sunday, April 12, 2009 TRANSMISSION OF ATYPICAL BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE) IN HUMANIZED MOUSE MODELS


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/04/transmission-of-atypical-bovine.html


Saturday, January 24, 2009

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy h-BSE ATYPICAL USA 2008 Annual Report Research Project: Study of Atypical Bse

Location: Virus and Prion Diseases of Livestock

2008 Annual Report


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/01/bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy-h-bse.html


HUMAN AND ANIMAL TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY, the silent pandemic

April 28, 2009 11:13 AM

the mad cow feed ban i.e. ruminant to ruminant feed ban was a long time over due. since august 4, 1997, since the inception of the PARTIAL and VOLUNTARY ban, the ban has been flouted, and thought of as nothing more than a joke. the feed ban of august 4, 1997 was nothing more than ink on paper. in 2007 alone, in one weekly enforcement letter, 10 MILLION PLUS POUNDS OF BANNED, BLOOD LACED MEAT AND BONE MEAL went out in commerce, to be fed out from state to state. there were many more since the infamous fda mad cow feed ban that never was. the industry need not look any further than the mirror to find the one to blame. they have had 12 years to get their house in order, but they chose to ignore the ban, the science, and to conduct business as usual i.e. feeding SRMs to human and livestock producing animals. no good, prions kill. this is not rocket science. all one has to do is look at the transmission studies. it's what i call the 'silent pandemic'. most all of us have been exposed, some are dying, but it is the friendly fire, and the very long incubation period that is fooling everyone. sporadic CJDs are on the rise, and the UKBSEnvCJD hamburger eating adolescents only theory was nothing more than a pipe dream. it's wrong, and for those that continue to follow this bogus theory will only enhance and spread all TSEs globally in doing so. North America has documented not only the typical cBSE, but also the h-BSE, and the l-BSE atypicals have been documented. CWD rampant in deer and elk, Scrapie, and the Nor-98 atypical scrapie in sheep and goats, with the latest scrapie case documented in a goat in March 2009 in the USA. North America is awash in animal TSEs, and again, sporadic CJD is rising, with atypical cases of CJD in young in the USA, what's that ??? rest asure, the cdc/USDA et al will assure, it's nothing. i don't believe them. ...TSS

National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center Cases Examined1 (December 31, 2008)


http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/national-prion-disease-pathology.html


http://www.bizlex.com/Articles-c-2009-04-28-86561.113117_FDA_ruling_hits_area_animal_agriculture.html


Tuesday, April 28, 2009

TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY UPDATE (the silent pandemic) AND Agricultural Bioterrorism


http://madcowusda.blogspot.com/2009/04/transmissible-spongiform-encephalopathy.html


Thursday, April 9, 2009

Docket No. FDA2002N0031 (formerly Docket No. 2002N0273) RIN 0910AF46 Substances Prohibited From Use in Animal Food or Feed; Final Rule: Proposed


http://madcowfeed.blogspot.com/2009/04/docket-no-fda2002n0031-formerly-docket.html


http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/r-calf-and-usa-mad-cow-problem-dont.html#comments


Sunday, April 12, 2009 r-calf and the USA mad cow problem, don't look, don't find, and then blame Canada


http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/r-calf-and-usa-mad-cow-problem-dont.html


http://prionunitusaupdate2008.blogspot.com/2009/04/cjd-foundation-sides-with-r-calfers-no.html#comments


Docket APHIS-2006-0041 Docket Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived from Bovines Commodities Docket Type Rulemaking Document APHIS-2006-0041-0001 Document Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived From Bovines Public Submission APHIS-2006-0041-0028 Public Submission Title Comment from Terry S Singletary

Comment 2006-2007 USA AND OIE POISONING GLOBE WITH BSE MRR POLICY

THE USA is in a most unique situation, one of unknown circumstances with human and animal TSE. THE USA has the most documented TSE in different species to date, with substrains growing in those species (BSE/BASE in cattle and CWD in deer and elk, there is evidence here with different strains), and we know that sheep scrapie has over 20 strains of the typical scrapie with atypical scrapie documented and also BSE is very likely to have passed to sheep. all of which have been rendered and fed back to animals for human and animal consumption, a frightening scenario. WE do not know the outcome, and to play with human life around the globe with the very likely TSE tainted products from the USA, in my opinion is like playing Russian roulette, of long duration, with potential long and enduring consequences, of which once done, cannot be undone. These are the facts as I have come to know through daily and extensive research of TSE over 9 years, since 12/14/97. I do not pretend to have all the answers, but i do know to continue to believe in the ukbsenvcjd only theory of transmission to humans of only this one strain from only this one TSE from only this one part of the globe, will only lead to further failures, and needless exposure to humans from all strains of TSE, and possibly many more needless deaths from TSE via a multitude of proven routes and sources via many studies with primates and rodents and other species.

MY personal belief, since you ask, is that not only the Canadian border, but the USA border, and the Mexican border should be sealed up tighter than a drum for exporting there TSE tainted products, until a validated, 100% sensitive test is available, and all animals for human and animal consumption are tested. all we are doing is the exact same thing the UK did with there mad cow poisoning when they exported it all over the globe, all the while knowing what they were doing. this BSE MRR policy is nothing more than a legal tool to do just exactly what the UK did, thanks to the OIE and GW, it's legal now. and they executed Saddam for poisoning ???

go figure. ...


http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main?main=DocumentDetail&o=09000064801f8151


Docket APHIS-2006-0041 Docket Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived from Bovines Commodities Docket Type Rulemaking Document APHIS-2006-0041-0001 Document Title Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy; Minimal-Risk Regions; Importation of Live Bovines and Products Derived From Bovines Public Submission APHIS-2006-0041-0028.1 Public Submission Title Attachment to Singletary comment

January 28, 2007

Greetings APHIS,

I would kindly like to submit the following to ;

BSE; MRR; IMPORTATION OF LIVE BOVINES AND PRODUCTS DERIVED FROM BOVINES [Docket No. APHIS-2006-0041] RIN 0579-AC01


http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/ContentViewer?objectId=09000064801f8152&disposition=attachment&contentType=msw8


IN A NUT SHELL ; $$$

(Adopted by the International Committee of the OIE on 23 May 2006)

11. Information published by the OIE is derived from appropriate declarations made by the official Veterinary Services of Member Countries.The OIE is not responsible for inaccurate publication of country disease status based on inaccurate information or changes in epidemiological status or other significant events that were not promptly reported to then Central Bureau............


http://www.oie.int/eng/Session2007/RF2006.pdf


Owner and Corporation Plead Guilty to Defrauding Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) Surveillance Program

An Arizona meat processing company and its owner pled guilty in February 2007 to charges of theft of Government funds, mail fraud, and wire fraud. The owner and his company defrauded the BSE Surveillance Program when they falsified BSE Surveillance Data Collection Forms and then submitted payment requests to USDA for the services. In addition to the targeted sample population (those cattle that were more than 30 months old or had other risk factors for BSE), the owner submitted to USDA, or caused to be submitted, BSE obex (brain stem) samples from healthy USDA-inspected cattle. As a result, the owner fraudulently received approximately $390,000. Sentencing is scheduled for May 2007.

snip...

4 USDA OIG SEMIANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS FY 2007 1st Half


http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/sarc070619.pdf


USDA: In 9,200 cases only one type of test could be used

WASHINGTON (AP)--The U.S. Department of Agriculture acknowledged Aug. 17 that its testing options for bovine spongiform encephalopathy were limited in 9,200 cases despite its effort to expand surveillance throughout the U.S. herd.

In those cases, only one type of test was used--one that failed to detect the disease in an infected Texas cow.

The department posted the information on its website because of an inquiry from The Associated Press.

Conducted over the past 14 months, the tests have not been included in the department's running tally of BSE tests since last summer. That total reached 439,126 on Aug. 17.

"There's no secret program," the department's chief veterinarian, John Clifford, said in an interview. "There has been no hiding, I can assure you of that."

Officials intended to report the tests later in an annual report, Clifford said.

These 9,200 cases were different because brain tissue samples were preserved with formalin, which makes them suitable for only one type of test--immunohistochemistry, or IHC.

In the Texas case, officials had declared the cow free of disease in November after an IHC test came back negative. The department's inspector general ordered an additional kind of test, which confirmed the animal was infected.

Veterinarians in remote locations have used the preservative on tissue to keep it from degrading on its way to the department's laboratory in Ames, Iowa. Officials this year asked veterinarians to stop using preservative and send fresh or chilled samples within 48 hours.

The department recently investigated a possible case of BSE that turned up in a preserved sample. Further testing ruled out the disease two weeks ago.

Scientists used two additional tests--rapid screening and Western blot--to help detect BSE in the country's second confirmed case, in a Texas cow in June. They used IHC and Western blot to confirm the first case, in a Washington state cow in December 2003.

"The IHC test is still an excellent test," Clifford said. "These are not simple tests, either."

Clifford pointed out that scientists reran the IHC several times and got conflicting results. That happened, too, with the Western blot test. Both tests are accepted by international animal health officials.

Date: 8/25/05


http://www.hpj.com/archives/2005/aug05/aug29/BSEtestoptionswerelimited.cfm


""These 9,200 cases were different because brain tissue samples were preserved with formalin, which makes them suitable for only one type of test--immunohistochemistry, or IHC."

THIS WAS DONE FOR A REASON!

THE IHC test has been proven to be the LEAST LIKELY to detect BSE/TSE in the bovine, and these were probably from the most high risk cattle pool, the ones the USDA et al, SHOULD have been testing. ...TSS

USDA 2003

We have to be careful that we don't get so set in the way we do things that we forget to look for different emerging variations of disease. We've gotten away from collecting the whole brain in our systems. We're using the brain stem and we're looking in only one area. In Norway, they were doing a project and looking at cases of Scrapie, and they found this where they did not find lesions or PRP in the area of the obex. They found it in the cerebellum and the cerebrum. It's a good lesson for us. Ames had to go back and change the procedure for looking at Scrapie samples. In the USDA, we had routinely looked at all the sections of the brain, and then we got away from it. They've recently gone back. Dr. Keller: Tissues are routinely tested, based on which tissue provides an 'official' test result as recognized by APHIS.

Dr. Detwiler: That's on the slaughter. But on the clinical cases, aren't they still asking for the brain? But even on the slaughter, they're looking only at the brainstem. We may be missing certain things if we confine ourselves to one area.

snip.............

Dr. Detwiler: It seems a good idea, but I'm not aware of it. Another important thing to get across to the public is that the negatives do not guarantee absence of infectivity. The animal could be early in the disease and the incubation period. Even sample collection is so important. If you're not collecting the right area of the brain in sheep, or if collecting lymphoreticular tissue, and you don't get a good biopsy, you could miss the area with the PRP in it and come up with a negative test. There's a new, unusual form of Scrapie that's been detected in Norway. We have to be careful that we don't get so set in the way we do things that we forget to look for different emerging variations of disease. We've gotten away from collecting the whole brain in our systems. We're using the brain stem and we're looking in only one area. In Norway, they were doing a project and looking at cases of Scrapie, and they found this where they did not find lesions or PRP in the area of the obex. They found it in the cerebellum and the cerebrum. It's a good lesson for us. Ames had to go back and change the procedure for looking at Scrapie samples. In the USDA, we had routinely looked at all the sections of the brain, and then we got away from it. They've recently gone back.

Dr. Keller: Tissues are routinely tested, based on which tissue provides an 'official' test result as recognized by APHIS .

Dr. Detwiler: That's on the slaughter. But on the clinical cases, aren't they still asking for the brain? But even on the slaughter, they're looking only at the brainstem. We may be missing certain things if we confine ourselves to one area.

snip...

FULL TEXT;

Completely Edited Version PRION ROUNDTABLE

Accomplished this day, Wednesday, December 11, 2003, Denver, Colorado

2005

=============================

CDC DR. PAUL BROWN TSE EXPERT COMMENTS 2006

The U.S. Department of Agriculture was quick to assure the public earlier this week that the third case of mad cow disease did not pose a risk to them, but what federal officials have not acknowledged is that this latest case indicates the deadly disease has been circulating in U.S. herds for at least a decade.

The second case, which was detected last year in a Texas cow and which USDA officials were reluctant to verify, was approximately 12 years old.

These two cases (the latest was detected in an Alabama cow) present a picture of the disease having been here for 10 years or so, since it is thought that cows usually contract the disease from contaminated feed they consume as calves. The concern is that humans can contract a fatal, incurable, brain-wasting illness from consuming beef products contaminated with the mad cow pathogen.

"The fact the Texas cow showed up fairly clearly implied the existence of other undetected cases," Dr. Paul Brown, former medical director of the National Institutes of Health's Laboratory for Central Nervous System Studies and an expert on mad cow-like diseases, told United Press International. "The question was, 'How many?' and we still can't answer that."

Brown, who is preparing a scientific paper based on the latest two mad cow cases to estimate the maximum number of infected cows that occurred in the United States, said he has "absolutely no confidence in USDA tests before one year ago" because of the agency's reluctance to retest the Texas cow that initially tested positive.

USDA officials finally retested the cow and confirmed it was infected seven months later, but only at the insistence of the agency's inspector general.

"Everything they did on the Texas cow makes everything USDA did before 2005 suspect," Brown said. ...snip...end


http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDaily/view.php?StoryID=20060315-055557-1284r


CDC - Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Variant Creutzfeldt ... Dr. Paul Brown is Senior Research Scientist in the Laboratory of Central Nervous System ... Address for correspondence: Paul Brown, Building 36, Room 4A-05, ...


http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol7no1/brown.htm


In this context, a word is in order about the US testing program. After the discovery of the first (imported) cow in 2003, the magnitude of testing was much increased, reaching a level of >400,000 tests in 2005 (Figure 4). Neither of the 2 more recently indigenously infected older animals with nonspecific clinical features would have been detected without such testing, and neither would have been identified as atypical without confirmatory Western blots. Despite these facts, surveillance has now been decimated to 40,000 annual tests (USDA news release no. 0255.06, July 20, 2006) and invites the accusation that the United States will never know the true status of its involvement with BSE.

In short, a great deal of further work will need to be done before the phenotypic features and prevalence of atypical BSE are understood. More than a single strain may have been present from the beginning of the epidemic, but this possibility has been overlooked by virtue of the absence of widespread Western blot confirmatory testing of positive screening test results; or these new phenotypes may be found, at least in part, to result from infections at an older age by a typical BSE agent, rather than neonatal infections with new "strains" of BSE. Neither alternative has yet been investigated.


http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no12/06-0965.htm


Executive Summary

In June 2005, an inconclusive bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) sample from November 2004, that had originally been classified as negative on the immunohistochemistry test, was confirmed positive on SAF immunoblot (Western blot). The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) identified the herd of origin for the index cow in Texas; that identification was confirmed by DNA analysis. USDA, in close cooperation with the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), established an incident command post (ICP) and began response activities according to USDA’s BSE Response Plan of September 2004. Response personnel removed at-risk cattle and cattle of interest (COI) from the index herd, euthanized them, and tested them for BSE; all were negative. USDA and the State extensively traced all at-risk cattle and COI that left the index herd. The majority of these animals entered rendering and/or slaughter channels well before the investigation began. USDA’s response to the Texas finding was thorough and effective.


http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/issues/bse/epi-updates/bse_final_epidemiology_report.pdf


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-11-27T20%3A13%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/


Report on Food & Drug Administration Dallas District Investigation of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Event in Texas 2005 Executive Summary: On June 24, 2005, USDA informed FDA that a cow in Texas tested positive for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). Information provided by APHIS was that the BSE positive cow was born and raised in a herd in Texas and was approximately 12 years old. The animal was sampled for BSE at a pet food plant in Texas on November 15, 2004, as part of USDA’s enhanced surveillance program.


http://www.fda.gov/cvm/texasfeedrpt.htm


Texas even had a 'secret' test that showed that mad cow positive; experimental IHC test results, because the test was not a validated procedure, and because the two approved IHC tests came back negative, the results were not considered to be of regulatory significance and therefore were not reported beyond the laboratory. • A Western blot test conducted the week of June 5, 2005, returned positive for BSE.


http://www.usda.gov/documents/vs_bse_ihctestvar.pdf


48 hr BSE confirmation turnaround took 7+ months to confirm this case, so the BSE MRR policy could be put into place. ...


TSS

-------- Original Message --------

Subject: re-USDA's surveillance plan for BSE aka mad cow diseaseDate: Mon, 02 May 2005 16:59:07 -0500

From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."

To: mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:paffairs@oig.hhs.gov, mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:HHSTips@oig.hhs.gov, mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:contactOIG@hhsc.state.tx.us Greetings Honorable Paul Feeney, Keith Arnold, and William Busbyet al at OIG, ...............

snip...

There will be several more emails of my research to follow. I respectfully request a full inquiry into the cover-up of TSEs in the United States of America over the past 30 years. I would be happy to testify...

Thank you, I am sincerely, Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518 xxx xxx xxxx


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-07-31T13%3A31%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7


Safeguarding American Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service • United States Department of Agriculture •


http://www.usda.gov/documents/vs_bse_ihctestvar.pdf


THIS confirms that the June 2004 Enhanced BSE cover-up, was just that. Like i said before, due to this terribly flawed system, those 388,000 testing to date for BSE in the USA were meaningless and should be retested. ...

Subject: USDA JOHANN'S MAD ABOUT FONG, PLANS HIS OWN LAB AND HIS OWN MAD COW ANTIBODIES ;-) Date: July 29, 2005 at 2:35 pm PST

Friday, July 29, 2005


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2007-12-18T12%3A13%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7


USDA did not test possible mad cows

By Steve Mitchell United Press International Published 6/8/2004 9:30 PM

WASHINGTON, June 8 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture claims ittested 500 cows with signs of a brain disorder for mad cow disease last year, but agency documents obtained by United Press International show the agency tested only half that number.

USDA officials said the difference is made up in animals tested at state veterinary diagnostic laboratories, but these animals were not tested using the "gold standard" test employed by the agency for confirming acase of the deadly disease. Instead, the state labs used a less sensitive test that experts say could miss mad cow cases.

In addition, the state lab figures were not included in a March 2004 USDA document estimating the number of animals most likely to be infected among U.S. herds, and apparently were not given to a congressional committee that had requested agency data on the number of cows with brain disorder signs that had been tested for the disease.

"This is just adding to the demise of USDA's credibility," said Felicia Nestor, senior policy adviser to the Government Accountability Project, a group in Washington, D.C., that works with federal whistleblowers.

"If the USDA is going to exclude from testing the animals most likely to have the disease, that would seem to have a very negative impact on there liability of their conclusion," Nestor told UPI.

Nestor, who has monitored the USDA's mad cow surveillance program closely for several years, asked, "Are they deliberately avoiding testing animals that look like they have the disease?"

Concerns about the number of cows in U.S. herds with brain disorder symptoms have been heightened due to the recent case in Texas, in which USDA officials failed to test an animal with such symptoms, also known as central nervous system or CNS signs. This was a violation of USDA policy, which stipulates all CNS cows should be tested because they are considered the most likely to be mad cow infected. To date, the Washington cow that tested positive last December is the only confirmed case of mad cow disease -- also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- among U.S. herds.

The Texas incident has alarmed the public and members of Congress because humans can contract a fatal brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from consuming meat infected with the mad cow pathogen. If the USDA's surveillance program is allowing the riskiest cows to go untested, it raises concerns about the ability of the monitoring system to detect the disease reliably in U.S. herds, Rep.Henry Waxman, D-Calif., charged in a May 13 letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.

Dr. Peter Lurie, of the consumer group Public Citizen, said CNS cows should be the one category that absolutely has to be tested to have a sound surveillance system.

"CNS animals are far and away the most important animals to test," said Lurie, who has done several analyses of the USDA's mad cow surveillance program.

"If there's any category that needs 100 percent testing, that's it, because they would be the most likely place to find mad cow in America," he told UPI. "Any CNS cow that slips into the food supply represents a major case of malpractice by USDA, and similarly, the failure to test the brain of that animal to see if it was indeed infected is really a failure to protect the public."

USDA officials said the agency has no estimate on how many CNS cows occur in U.S. herds. But spokesman Ed Loyd has told UPI, and at least one other media outlet, that 500 CNS cows were tested in fiscal year 2003. Yet agency testing records for the first 10 months of FY 2003, obtained by UPI under the Freedom of Information Act, show only 254 animals that fall under the CNS category -- or about half the number Loyd cited.

After failing to respond to repeated requests from UPI for clarification of the apparent discrepancy, Loyd finally offered the explanation that an additional 45 CNS cows were tested by the USDA during the final two months of FY 2003. The remainder, he said, was made up by CNS cases tested at various state veterinary diagnostic laboratories.

"We also include data reported to us from state veterinary diagnostic laboratories, and all of these are CNS cases that have been tested for BSE using a histological examination," Loyd said.

"We were not using any other labs during this period, other than (the USDA lab), to run the IHC tests for BSE, which is the gold standard," he said. "This (state laboratory) information contributes important data to our surveillance effort."

However, the state labs did not use the immunohistochemistry test, which the USDA has called the "gold standard" for diagnosing mad cow disease. Instead, the labs used a different test called histopathology, which theUSDA itself does not use to confirm a case, opting instead for the more sensitive IHC test.

The histopathology test, unlike the IHC test, does not detect prions --misfolded proteins that serve as a marker for infection and can be spotted early on in the course of the illness. Rather, it screens forthe microscopic holes in the brain that are characteristic of advanced mad cow disease.

According to the USDA's Web site, histopathology proves reliable only if the brain sample is removed soon after the death of the animal. If there is too much of a delay, the Web site states, it can be "very difficult to confirm a diagnosis by histopathology" because the brain structures may have begun to disintegrate.

That is one reason the agency began using the IHC test -- it can confirm a diagnosis if the brain has begun disintegrating or been frozen for shipping.

The state labs used histopathology to screen 266 CNS cases in FY 2003, as well as 257 cases in FY 2002, according to Loyd. He did not explain why this information was not included in the testing records the agency provided to UPI and has not responded to requests for the identity of the state labs.

Linda Detwiler, a former USDA veterinarian who oversaw the agency's madcow testing program, told UPI the histopathology test probably is adequate for screening CNS cows. If they have mad cow disease, she said, it would likely be an advanced stage that should be obvious.

Other mad cow disease experts, however, said having a back-up test suchas IHC would be advisable, because histopathology tests sometimes can miss evidence of infection.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations offers similar recommendations in its protocol for conducing a histopathology test. The protocol states that even if histopathology is negative,"further sampling should be undertaken" in cases "where clinical signs have strongly suggested BSE" -- a criteria that includes all of the cows tested at the state labs.

The USDA seems to agree on the need for a back-up test. Its expanded surveillance program, which began June 1, calls for using IHC -- or another test called Western blot -- to confirm any positives found on rapid tests. The March 15 document that describes the new program does not mention using histopathology to confirm cases of mad cow disease.

"Subtle changes can be missed on histopathology that would probably not be as easy to miss using IHC," said Elizabeth Mumford, a veterinarian and BSE expert at Safe Food Solutions in Bern, Switzerland, a company that provides advice on reducing mad cow risk to industry and governments.

"Therefore I believe it is valuable to run (histopathology)," Mumford told UPI.

She noted that in Europe, two tests -- neither one the histopathology test -- are used to ensure no cases are missed. A rapid test is used initially for screening, followed by IHC as a confirmatory test.

Markus Moser, a molecular biologist and chief executive officer of the Swiss firm Prionics, which manufactures tests for detecting mad cow disease, agrees about the possibility of a case being missed by histopathology.

"There were cases which were (histopathology) negative but still clearly positive with the other (testing) methods," Moser said. "BSE testing based on histology on sub-optimal tissue was probably one of the reasons why Germany was allegedly BSE-free until our test discovered that they were not" in 2000, Moser told UPI.

He agreed with Detwiler that histopathology should be suitable for most cases of CNS cows, but added it still can fail to detect the disease in some CNS cases -- particularly if the sample is not optimum.

"It is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the subtle changes in a diseased brain from artifacts like ruptures in the tissue due to tissue damage during the sampling, transport or preparation," he said.

Loyd asserted the additional CNS cases from the state labs actually yielded a total of 565 such cows the USDA had tested -- 65 more than his original figure of 500. Whether the USDA considers its total to be 500 or 565, however, either figure would exceed the agency's own estimates for the total number of such cows that it identifies annually.

According to data the USDA provided to the House Committee on Government Reform, and numbers the agency included in the March document about its expanded surveillance plan, only 201 to 249 CNS cows are identified at slaughterhouses. Approximately 129 additional cases occur on farms annually. At most, that yields a combined total of 378 CNS cows, or nearly 200 less than the 565 Loyd claims the agency tested.

The USDA surveillance plan document makes no mention of the number of CNS animals tested at state veterinary diagnostic labs. The figure also does not appear to be included in the agency's estimates of the number of high-risk animals that occur in the United States each year. The latter number was used to help the USDA calculate the number of animals it will screen for mad cow disease in its expanded surveillance plan.

USDA officials also did not include the state lab figures in response to a question from the House Committee on Government Reform, a source close to the issue told UPI. The committee, on which Waxman is the ranking Democrat, had requested in a March 8 letter to Veneman that she provide "the number of BSE tests that were conducted on cattle exhibiting central nervous system symptoms" for each of the last five years.

Loyd did not respond to a request from UPI asking why agency officials did not provide that information to the committee or include it in USDA's explanation of its expanded surveillance plan.

The committee has taken note of the CNS issue and plans to delve into it further in a hearing slated for sometime in the next few months.

"The committee will explore this and other issues surrounding USDA and BSE testing at a hearing later this summer," Drew Crockett, spokesman for the committee, told UPI.

--

Steve Mitchell is UPI's Medical Correspondent. E-mail mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:sciencemail@upi.com

Copyright © 2001-2004 United Press International


http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040608-014607-3865r


''USDA gets a D or D minus," said Caroline Smith Dewaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group based in Washington. ''The best thing that came out of this is the work of the inspector general."

It was the department's in-house watchdog, Inspector General Phyllis Fong, who skirted the USDA hierarchy by ordering retesting with a different method more than six months after a routine second-round test, known as the immunohistochemistry, or IHC, test proved negative for the disease.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns, who assumed office in January, has said he neither knew about nor authorized the retesting by the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa.

BESIDES the Texas mad cow that sat on the shelf for 7+ months before the Honorable Phyllis Fong of the OIG finally did the end around Johanns et al and finally had Weybridge bring that negative cow back from the dead to finally being a confirmed mad cow (hint, hint, getting MRR implemented first), was this simply another bumbling of BSE protocol, or just same old same old;

Jim Rogers (202) 690-4755

USDA Press Office (202) 720-4623

Statement by Chief Veterinary Medical Officer John Clifford Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Regarding Non-Definitive BSE Test ResultsJuly 27, 2005

snip...

Our laboratory ran the IHC test on the sample and received non-definitive results that suggest the need for further testing. As we have previously experienced, it is possible for an IHC test to yield differing results depending on the “slice” of tissue that is tested. Therefore, scientists at our laboratory and at Weybridge will run the IHC test on additional “slices” of tissue from this animal to determine whether or not it was infected with BSE. We will announce results as soon as they are compiled, which we expect to occur by next week.

I would note that the sample was taken in April, at which time the protocols allowed for a preservative to be used (protocols changed in June 2005). The sample was not submitted to us until last week, because the veterinarian set aside the sample after preserving it and simply forgot to send it in. On that point, I would like to emphasize that while that time lag is not optimal, it has no implications in terms of the risk to human health. The carcass of this animal was destroyed, therefore there is absolutely no risk to human or animal health from this animal.

snip...


http://www.aphis.usda.gov/lpa/news/2005/07/bsestatement_vs.html


Subject: Statement by Dr. John Clifford Regarding Non-Definitive BSE Test Results

Date: July 27, 2005 at 12:37 pm PST

Jim Rogers (202) 690-4755Jerry Redding (202) 720-6959

Statement by Dr. John Clifford Regarding Non-Definitive BSE Test Results

Late yesterday, we received non-definitive test results on an animal sampled as part of a voluntary extension of our enhanced BSE surveillance program. USDA is conducting further testing at the National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa, in consultation with experts from the international reference laboratory in Weybridge, England. We are also sending samples from this animal to the Weybridge laboratory for further testing. It is important to note that this animal poses no threat to our food supply because it did not enter the human food or animal feed chains.

The sample was submitted to us by a private veterinarian. As an extension of our enhanced surveillance program, accredited private veterinarians, who often visit farms in remote areas, collect samples when warranted. The sample in question today was taken from a cow that was at least 12 years of age and experienced complications during calving. The veterinarian treated the sample with a preservative, which readies it for testing using the immunohistochemistry (IHC) test - an internationally recognized confirmatory test for BSE. Neither the rapid screening test nor the Western blot confirmatory test can be conducted on a sample that has been preserved.

Our laboratory ran the IHC test on the sample and received non-definitive results that suggest the need for further testing. As we have previously experienced, it is possible for an IHC test to yield differing results depending on the â?osliceâ? of tissue that is tested. Therefore, scientists at our laboratory and at Weybridge will run the IHC test on additional â?oslicesâ? of tissue from this animal to determine whether or not it was infected with BSE. We will announce results as soon as they are compiled, which we expect to occur by next week.I would note that the sample was taken in April, at which time the protocols allowed for a preservative to be used (protocols changed in June 2005).

The sample was not submitted to us until last week, because the veterinarian set aside the sample after preserving it and simply forgot to send it in. On that point, I would like to emphasize that while that time lag is not optimal, it has no implications in terms of the risk to human health. The carcass of this animal was destroyed, therefore there is absolutely no risk to human or animal health from this animal.

Regardless of the outcome of the further testing, I want to emphasize that human and animal health in the United States are protected by a system of interlocking safeguards. The most important of these is the ban on specified risk materials from the food supply and the Food and Drug Administrations feed ban. And by any measure, the incidence of BSE in this country is extremely low. Our enhanced surveillance program is designed to provide information about the level of prevalence of BSE in the United States. We are extremely gratified that to date, all sectors of the cattle industry have cooperated in this program by submitting samples from more than 419,000 animals from the highest risk populations. To date, only one animal has tested positive for the disease as part of the surveillance program. These interlocking safeguards continue to protect our food supply.

#

Note to Reporters: USDA news releases, program announcements and media advisories are available on the Internet. Go to the APHIS home page at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ and click on the â?oNewsâ? button. Also, anyone with an e-mail address can sign up to receive APHIS press releases automatically. Send an e-mail message to mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:lyris@mdrdlyriss10.aphis.usda.govand leave the subject blank. In the message, typesubscribe press_releases.USDA mhtml:%7B33B38F65-8D2E-434D-8F9B-8BDCD77D3066%7Dmid://00000061/!x-usc:mailto:Newsoc.news@usda.gov202 720-4623----------------------------------------------------

"The sample was submitted to us by a private veterinarian. As an extension of our enhanced surveillance program, accredited private veterinarians who often visit farms in remote areas collect samples when warranted. The sample in question today was taken from a cow that was at least 12 years of age and experienced complications during calving.

"The veterinarian treated the sample with a preservative which readies it for testing using the immunohistochemistry test, an internationally recognized confirmatory test for BSE.

"Neither the rapid screening test nor the Western blot confirmatory test can be conducted on a sample that has been preserved. Our laboratory ran the IHC test on the sample and received non-definitive results that suggest the need for further testing.

"As we have previously experienced, it is possible for an IHC test to yield differing results, depending on the slice of tissue that is tested. Therefore scientists at our laboratory and at Weybridge will run the IHC test on additional slices of tissue from this animal to determine whether or not it was infected with BSE.

"We will announce results as soon as they are compiled, which we expect to occur by next week.

snip...


http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=2005/07/0280.xml


In Reply to: Re: Statement by Dr. John Clifford Regarding Non-Definitive BSE Test Results posted by TSS on July 27, 2005 at 12:53 pm:

o.k., let me get this right. i am pondering here;-)

all the time this TEXAS positive, positive, (secret) positive, inconclusive, negative, then Weybridge confirmed 2nd BSE documented case (thanks to the Honorable Phyllis Fong),all this time this BSe going on in TEXAS, was plastered all over the news, this guy forgot about that sample, and it just sat up on some shelf wasting away for months, as to be in such bad shape, they now cannot even test it properly. r i g h t ... like ooops, sorry. ...end

============================================

The animal died in April, but the veterinarian forgot to send the sample to USDA until this month, Mr. Clifford said. "While that time lag is not optimal, it has no implications in terms of the risk to human health," he said.

IHC tests returned conflicting results on the Texas cow. Use of the preservative means that the other tests commonly done when mad cow is suspected, initial rapid screening and Western blot, can't be performed on this sample, the official said. Mr. Clifford said it's possible to get different results, "depending on the slice of tissue that is tested."

The fatal brain-wasting disease is known medically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. In people, eating tainted meat products has been linked to about 150 deaths from a fatal disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Most of the deaths were in the United Kingdom, where there was an outbreak in the 1980s and 1990s.

The U.S. banned Canadian cattle in May 2003 following Canada's first case of mad-cow disease. The U.S. was about to lift the ban in March when U.S. District Judge Richard Cebull in Billings, Mont., granted an injunction to a ranchers' group called R-CALF United Stockgrowers of America. The ranchers had sued to keep the border closed to Canadian cattle, saying the disease presented a risk to the U.S. beef industry as well as to American consumers.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the injunction earlier this month, allowing cattle shipments from Canada to resume. The lifting of the ban reopens the U.S. to cattle younger than 30 months and expands the list of beef products Canada is allowed to ship to the U.S. Older animals are still banned, because infection levels are believed to increase with age.

Copyright © 2005 Associated Press

http://online.wsj.com/


Greetings,

this is what you call the 'FONG' syndrome. make sure she can't make them do a WB on this sample.

I BEG THE OIG and the Honorable Phyllis Fong to investigate this blunder too. there is no way that sample sat on a shelf while the world waited on that Texas mad cow blunder dust to settle, and someone just forgets about it. i just don't believe this either...

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http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2007-12-18T12%3A13%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=7


MAD COW DISEASE USA DECEMBER 28, 2008 an 8 year review of a failed and flawed policy


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/12/mad-cow-disease-usa-december-28-2008-8.html


Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease presenting as severe depression: a case report


http://creutzfeldt-jakob-disease.blogspot.com/2009/02/creutzfeldt-jacob-disease-presenting-as.html


CJD QUESTIONNAIRE USA CWRU AND CJD FOUNDATION


http://cjdquestionnaire.blogspot.com/



Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518