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well..thats new one..mad cow from humans

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September 1, 2005

 

Associated Press

 

 

Theory: Mad Cow May Have Come From Humans

 

 

By EMMA ROSS

 

LONDON - A new theory proposes that mad cow disease may have come from feeding

British cattle meal contaminated with human remains infected with a variation of

the disease.

 

The hypothesis, outlined this week in The Lancet medical journal, suggests the

infected cattle feed came from the Indian subcontinent, where bodies sometimes

are ceremonially thrown into the Ganges River.

 

Indian experts not connected with the research pointed out weaknesses in the

theory but agreed it should be investigated.

 

The cause of the original case or cases of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform

encephalopathy, is unknown, but it belongs to a class of illnesses called

transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSEs.

 

Such illnesses exist in several species. Scrapie is a TSE that affects sheep and

goats, while chronic wasting disease afflicts elk and deer. A handful of TSEs

are found in humans, including Kuru, Alper's disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob

disease, or CJD.

 

All TSEs are fatal, untreatable and undiagnosable until after death. They are

called spongiform encephalopathies because the diseases involve spongy

degeneration of the brain.

 

The disease was not known to infect cows until 1986, when the first cases were

noticed in Britain. About a decade later, a new permutation of CJD, which

scientists dubbed variant CJD, started showing up in people there. Experts

believe this new variant came from eating beef products infected with mad cow

disease.

 

But where the cows got the disease remains a mystery.

 

The most popular theory is that cattle, which are vegetarian, were fed meal

containing sheep remains, passing scrapie from sheep to cows, where it

eventually evolved into a cow-specific disease. Another theory is that cows just

developed the disease spontaneously, without catching it from another species.

 

However, a pair of British scientists now proposes the origin may be the bones

of people infected with classical CJD, which they theorize ended up in cattle

feed imported from South Asia.

 

Britain imported hundreds of thousands of tons of whole bones, crushed bones and

carcass parts to be used for fertilizer and animal feed during the 1960s and

1970s. Nearly half of that came from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, said the

scientists, led by Alan Colchester, a professor of neuroscience at the

University of Kent in England.

 

" In India and Pakistan, gathering large bones and carcasses from the land and

from rivers has long been an important local trade for peasants, " the scientists

wrote. " Collectors encounter considerable quantities of human as well as animal

remains as a result of religious customs. "

 

Hindus believe remains should be disposed of in a river, preferably the Ganges.

 

" The ideal is for the body to be burned, but most people cannot afford enough

wood for a full cremation. ... Many complete corpses are thrown into the river, "

the scientists said, adding that the inclusion of human remains in animal bone

material exported from the Indian subcontinent has been documented.

 

Britain was the main recipient of animal byproducts exported from India and

Pakistan during the relevant period and was also a leader in feeding meat and

bone meal to calves, they noted.

 

Finally, the similarities between the strains — mad cow disease, classical CJD

and variant CJD — are sufficiently close to support the theory of a link among

them, the authors argued.

 

" We do not claim that our theory is proved, but it unquestionably warrants

further investigation, " the scientists wrote.

 

Indian neuroscientists Susarla Shankar and P. Satishchandra of the National

Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, India, agreed the

theory needs to be followed up, but urged caution.

 

" Scientists must proceed cautiously when hypothesizing about a disease that has

such wide geographical, cultural and religious implications, " they wrote in a

critique published in the journal.

 

Relatives of people who die of suspected CJD are persuaded to bury their dead or

cremate them, the two said. In most hospital-related deaths, bodies are not

taken to Varanasi, the holy city on the banks of the Ganges, but cremated or

buried nearer to home.

 

" Even in Varanasi, most Hindus do not put half-burnt bodies into the river, "

they wrote, adding that if bodies found in the Ganges did have CJD, there should

have been a major epidemic of the disease in north India.

 

" Facts to support or refute their hypothesis now need to be gathered with

urgency and great care, " the Indian scientists said.

 

 

are you a mod or are you a skin or are you a punk or are you just faking?

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