Madness

January 30, 2004

As some of you now know, the disease known as "Mad Cow," or more technically, "bovine spongiform encephalopathy" (BSE) has been jumping species for some years now. The deadly and infectious protein that apparently causes it is called a "prion." It is somehow generated and passes from one species to another as food composed in part of one of the other infected species. No amount of cooking will destroy it short of creating a cinder. So it passes through food from one species (such as cows) to another (such as man) and wreaking the same havoc in the brains of man as in the brains of cows and other infected species, now documented to include cows, sheep, hogs, ostrich and other birds, rodents, deer, elk and others.

The problem seems to be associated with feeding one species to another, regardless of whether or not such animal species could or should have ever encountered each other as links on the same food chain such as cow parts being fed to cows (cannibalism) or cows and chickens being fed chicken and cow parts, sheep, pig parts, etc., making carnivores out of herbivores or making certain birds (chickens, turkeys, ostrich) into carnivorous omnivores which (seem to) rely for nutrition upon cows and sheep.

Some of you may have found it hard to get the concept that this method of feeding animals (including our pets) is just plain wrong to do and has polluted our own food chain with those deadly prions creating within it a process out of control and a tragedy of biblical proportions playing out just below our general level of awareness.

Only universal testing of our meat from cows to sheep to goats to hogs, etc., and all of our foul from chickens to turkey to ostrich, etc and all of our wild game from hogs to deer to elk, etc., must be done to assure our food is "safe for human consumption" as the officials at the FDA laughingly call it.

In order to do universal testing,the cost of testing has to fall to a point where testing of the brain of a single chicken will cost under five cents. A single test of one animal (such as a cow) now costs about $100. Thus the unwillingness of the "authorities" to acknowledge their mistakes in allowing our human food chain animals to be infected and their failure to do something timely to stop the pandemic in its early stages.

The average time it is now believed to take for the human variant of the disease to show symptoms in humans is thirty years. Death occurs, on average, one year from the onset of obvious symptoms in humans.

The onset of symptoms varies across the many (uncounted) species now infected. It is not necessary for any of them to show symptoms to be able to pass the infection to man or to other animals. The infection can be passed via blood and blood products and by other organ transplant.

Restrictions are now in place in several countries as to which people from other countries may donate blood such as restrictions on people from England donating blood in Australia and Canada.

Whatever you do, the deadliest decision you could make would be to do nothing.

To be continued...

Dennis H. Clarke

Ian "Doc" Shillington N.D.505-772-5889Dr.IanShillington