##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################
Sept. 26, 2006, 7:04AM
29th suspected case of mad cow in Japan
© 2006 The Associated Press
TOKYO — A cow in northern Japan is suspected of having the country's 29th case of mad cow disease, an official said Tuesday.
Preliminary tests on the animal at the Ishikari Livestock Hygiene Service Center in Hokkaido prefecture on Japan's northernmost main island were positive, said Hokkaido official Hiroyuki Takeuchi. Final test results could be known by the end of this week, he said.
The cow died at a ranch and was brought to the hygiene center for initial testing.
To date, Japan has confirmed 28 animals infected with the fatal illness _ known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE _ since the first case in Japan was defected in 2001. Since then, Tokyo has begun taking steps to check every cow that is slaughtered or dies at ranches before it enters the food supply.
Japan banned imports of American beef in December 2003 after the first case of mad cow disease in the United States. That ban was eased in December 2005, but was re-imposed after prohibited spinal bones were found in a shipment of veal in January.
In July, Japan eased the ban, with U.S. beef hitting some retailers' shelves the following month. Earlier this month, Yoshinoya D&C Co., a major Japanese fast-food chain, returned a popular rice dish topped with U.S. beef that was off the menu for more than two years due to mad cow scares.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4214739.html
AT LEAST Japan is looking for BSE/TSE in there cattle, a far cry from what the USDA is doing in the USA, and there failed attempt to document BSE/TSE in the June 2004 Enhanced BSE surveillance program, which we all know was flawed from the beginning ;
USA BSE OIG 2006
http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/50601-10-KC.pdf
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
THE SEVEN SCIENTIST REPORT ***
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/02n0273/02n-0273-EC244-Attach-1.pdf
Suppressed peer review of Harvard study October 31, 2002
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/oa/topics/BSE_Peer_Review.pdf
TSS
#################### https://lists.aegee.org/bse-l.html ####################
Sept. 26, 2006, 7:04AM
29th suspected case of mad cow in Japan
© 2006 The Associated Press
TOKYO — A cow in northern Japan is suspected of having the country's 29th case of mad cow disease, an official said Tuesday.
Preliminary tests on the animal at the Ishikari Livestock Hygiene Service Center in Hokkaido prefecture on Japan's northernmost main island were positive, said Hokkaido official Hiroyuki Takeuchi. Final test results could be known by the end of this week, he said.
The cow died at a ranch and was brought to the hygiene center for initial testing.
To date, Japan has confirmed 28 animals infected with the fatal illness _ known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE _ since the first case in Japan was defected in 2001. Since then, Tokyo has begun taking steps to check every cow that is slaughtered or dies at ranches before it enters the food supply.
Japan banned imports of American beef in December 2003 after the first case of mad cow disease in the United States. That ban was eased in December 2005, but was re-imposed after prohibited spinal bones were found in a shipment of veal in January.
In July, Japan eased the ban, with U.S. beef hitting some retailers' shelves the following month. Earlier this month, Yoshinoya D&C Co., a major Japanese fast-food chain, returned a popular rice dish topped with U.S. beef that was off the menu for more than two years due to mad cow scares.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4214739.html
AT LEAST Japan is looking for BSE/TSE in there cattle, a far cry from what the USDA is doing in the USA, and there failed attempt to document BSE/TSE in the June 2004 Enhanced BSE surveillance program, which we all know was flawed from the beginning ;
USA BSE OIG 2006
http://www.usda.gov/oig/webdocs/50601-10-KC.pdf
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
THE SEVEN SCIENTIST REPORT ***
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/dockets/02n0273/02n-0273-EC244-Attach-1.pdf
Suppressed peer review of Harvard study October 31, 2002
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/oa/topics/BSE_Peer_Review.pdf
TSS
#################### https://lists.aegee.org/bse-l.html ####################