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BSE/vCJD... No Link

TimH

Well-known member
CJD: no link to eating beef is found
By David Brown, Agriculture Editor, and David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 04/11/2000)



GOVERNMENT scientists in the front line of the battle to protect the public from the human form of BSE have found no positive link with eating beef.

They also found nothing to indicate that medical treatments or the occupations of the victims were to blame for them developing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The study of 51 victims by the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh does not necessarily undermine the consensus view of scientists, reiterated in last week's Phillips Report, that the most likely means of transmission of vCJD is through infected beef.

However, in studying sufferers against a small control sample, it failed to find a clear-cut statistical link between victims of vCJD and whether they ate beef, or how often.


The surveillance unit, headed by Prof Robert Will, who was a key witness at the BSE inquiry, is manned by some of the world's leading experts in spongiform encephalopathies - a family of diseases including BSE, CJD and scrapie in sheep. Its report for 1999, just published, said: "We have found no evidence of any dietary, iatrogenic or occupational risk for vCJD."
It described how experts studied the dietary and medical histories of 51 known victims of vCJD and their occupations. These results were compared with 27 patients used as controls who did not suffer from the disease. Patients and controls included people employed in livestock farming or the veterinary profession.

All but one of the 51 victims in the study ate beef, which is statistically similar to the rest of the population. Around 88 per cent of the victims ate burgers, the same proportion as in the population as a whole. They were slightly less likely to have eaten sausages.

One of the controls ate animal brains - which none of the vCJD victims were reported to have done. Consumption of cattle brains is banned in the UK because they are deemed to pose one of the highest risks of harbouring BSE. Fifty-four per cent of the vCJD cases ate beef more than once a week, compared to 37 per cent of the non-sufferers. However, the figures were said not to be "statistically significant".

On the association between the amount of beef eaten and the incidence of vCJD, the report said: "While these later findings are consistent with there being no association, we cannot exclude the possibility that such association exists." The Department of Health admitted last night that the evidence that eating beef was to blame for vCJD was "circumstantial".

Two days ago the Food Standards Agency, in its draft review of BSE controls in Britain, said: "Whilst the likely link between exposure to BSE and the occurrence of vCJD was considered by the Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee and ministers as sufficient to justify action, nevertheless the evidence was and remains circumstantial, albeit strong."

Scientists are divided on the real cause of BSE in cattle and its believed route to humans, but most favour the theory that it was caused by rogue prion proteins which set up a deadly chain reaction in cattle. The link between BSE and vCJD is thought likely because their progression and mechanism are so similar. Scientists have also been able to create diseases similar to vCJD in mice by injecting them with brain matter from diseased cattle.

The Meat and Livestock Commission, which was attacked in the BSE inquiry report for overstating the safety of beef, said: "This makes interesting reading. We will be watching the results of the unit's future research with great interest."

David Body, the lawyer representing most of the families of the victims of vCJD, said last night: "The CJD unit people are absolutely correct and proper to say that there is no clear association that they can determine. But at inquests on the victims they say that the disease is linked to beef or beef products. As the infectivity mechanism is insufficiently understood, we have to ask where the balance of likelihood lies. The fact is that the place where the infection was most evident was in cattle and these cattle went into the food chain."

Dr Stephen Dealler, a medical microbiologist, said he was not surprised by the findings. He suspected that the sample was too small to draw any meaningful conclusions about the transmission of the disease. So many people were eating beef regularly in the Eighties and Nineties that teasing out subtle differences in consumption levels was almost impossible, he said.

Prof Alan Ebringer, professor of immunology at King's College, London, said yesterday: "This evidence from the surveillance unit goes against the theory that eating beef causes vCJD."
Prof Ebringer, the leader of a team that has developed a test for BSE in live cattle, believes the common source of BSE and vCJD is a form of deadly bacteria widespread in the environment rather than rogue prion proteins. He attacked the BSE inquiry for dismissing his concept that the disease in cattle and people are auto-immune conditions brought about by acinetobacter calcoaceticus, a bacterium implicated in other diseases including multiple sclerosis.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Two days ago the Food Standards Agency, in its draft review of BSE controls in Britain, said: "Whilst the likely link between exposure to BSE and the occurrence of vCJD was considered by the Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee and ministers as sufficient to justify action, nevertheless the evidence was and remains circumstantial, albeit strong."

90% of those behind bars and those that go to the gallows have been convicted on the exact same quoted evidence- even DNA is circumstantial, albeit strong....
 

bse-tester

Well-known member
TimH quoted:

CJD: no link to eating beef is found
By David Brown, Agriculture Editor, and David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 04/11/2000)

Six years ago, the unit located in Edinborough University was hired by the BSE Advisory Committee, which was made up of a cross-section of Cattle and milk producers and representatives of the British Milk Authority, to see if there was any link between eating beef and drinking milk and contracting vCJD. Of course, the predetermined outcome was going to be that there was no link due to the fact that the study did not included the consumption of known BSE infected materials by those individuals participating in the study. The deck was stacked going in from the very beginning. So Timh, nice try pal, but a six year old and extremely bias study, commissioned by the very people who stood to lose their livelyhood in England if beef and milk were declared suspect, and a study that was dismissed by the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Fisheries due to the lack of base-line evidence that could confirm whether or not the study included known BSE meat products being confirmed as having been eaten by the very people who were listed in the study, is not going to cut it pal!! Nice try, but no cigar!!! Hell TimH, you can eat beef brains and meat all of your life, but until you consume one that is full of PrPsc, you will never develop prion disease.

Dr Stephen Dealler, a medical microbiologist, said he was not surprised by the findings. He suspected that the sample was too small to draw any meaningful conclusions about the transmission of the disease.

A very correct statement!

Prof Ebringer, the leader of a team that has developed a test for BSE in live cattle, believes the common source of BSE and vCJD is a form of deadly bacteria widespread in the environment rather than rogue prion proteins. He attacked the BSE inquiry for dismissing his concept that the disease in cattle and people are auto-immune conditions brought about by acinetobacter calcoaceticus, a bacterium implicated in other diseases including multiple sclerosis.

This guy was peed off about his own theories being turfed by the British Medical Authority earlier that year!! Besides which, one might wish to ask what happened to his so-called test??? It appears to have faded away like his theory regarding viral transmission and autoimmune concepts. Besides, the bacterium he speaks of is noted to be present in some other diseases including MS but it has no contributory effects on the host or the growth of the disease. It can however manifest itself in humans who run high temperatures during the height of the disease and the bacterium then is noted to be present in some, but not all patients.

Keep in mind also that it was not until early 2004 that the British Goverment officially acknowledged that science had shown overwhelming evidence that the risk of contracting vCJD from eating contaminated meat and meat by-products was indeed very real and to that end, they made their ground-breaking statement that effectively warned the British public to be aware that the risks were real.
 

flounder

Well-known member
TimH said:
CJD: no link to eating beef is found
By David Brown, Agriculture Editor, and David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 04/11/2000)



GOVERNMENT scientists in the front line of the battle to protect the public from the human form of BSE have found no positive link with eating beef...........



:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol2: :lol2: :liar: :liar: :liar:


YOUR always good for a laugh tim. thanks, that old report is like asking the wolf that just ate all the hens, where the hens went :lol2: :cboy: :cowboy:


thanks though, that was a good one..............tss
 

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