Canadian BSE Blood Test

[cedardell]

Front page health news on Yahoo says Canada has developed a low cost blood test that can efficiently diagnos BSE. Hopefully now we can test just like we do for TB at the slaughter plant and all the fear and hype will be a thing of the past. Was wondering if anyone else saw this or if I have some mispercption of this.

 

[Anonymous]

No misperception-- I was just reading about it in an e-mail I got....Apparently they think this moves them closer to a blood test...

New research puts blood test for BSE in sight: Calgary scientist
Last Updated: Thursday, January 29, 2009 | 4:20 PM ET

A team including researchers from the University of Calgary has identified the gene sequences associated with BSE in cows, a finding that they say could soon lead to the development of a cost-effective screening for the disease.


Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease as it is more commonly known, is a condition that effectively pokes holes in the brains of cattle. Scientists believe cattle can become infected with mad cow disease if they eat the tissue of an animal that had the disease.

Infected animals can be carriers of the disease for years and not show any symptoms. Traditionally, tests for mad cow disease could only be done post-mortem. In the past, entire herds have had to be slaughtered because of the suspicion of infection.

But the researchers say that they have come up with a method to determine if cattle are infected months before they show any symptoms. "We … envision that we could establish a testing pipeline next to the slaughterhouses for the animals that come in there to certify them as BSE-free," Christoph Sensen, the principal investigator from the University of Calgary, told CBC News.

Sensen, collaborating with other Canadian experts and scientists from German universities, analyzed animal CNAs — DNA molecules that are circulating in blood in response to an outside stressor, like an infection.

In their study, to be published in the January edition of the journal Nucleic Acids Research, the researchers tested elk for a similar condition, known as chronic wasting disease (CWD). They fed 19 elk with pieces of brain from infected animals and left five elk uninfected to act as controls. They then took a monthly blood sample every month for about two years, after which the infected animals were euthanized.

The researchers found three DNA sequence patterns that were showing up only in the infected elk. They spotted these differing sequences about half a year before the animals died and, notably, before any physical symptoms appeared.

They ran a similar analysis on cows infected with BSE. "We found the differences there to be similar to the ones with the elk," the scientists said.

Long-term analysis of cows needed
But the researchers were able to run only one analysis with cows — about four months before they died, said Sensen. Analyzing cows is much more complicated and time-consuming than studying elk. Many more breeds of cattle have to be screened and cows take much longer to die from BSE than elk do from CWD, Sensen said.

A researcher works at a lab at the University of Calgary. (CBC)
"We do have the blood samples [of cows] in the freezer and what we need to do is the work."

"We had about $200,000 to do the elk study. For the cows, with everything that we need to do…we need about 10 times as much money."

Sensen said he hopes to study the development of BSE in cows over the next three years. He believes a simple, cheap blood test can be developed soon after the completion of that study.

An outbreak of BSE devastated British dairy herds in the 1980s, forcing millions of animals to be culled. The source has never been identified, but most experts believe cattle feed contaminated with remains of sheep infected with a similar disease called scrapie may be to blame.

Humans who eat meat contaminated by mad cow disease appear to be at risk of contracting a form of the rare and deadly brain ailment Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Mad cow disease is linked to the deaths of about 150 people worldwide, most of them in Europe during an outbreak that peaked in 1993.

The first case of mad cow disease confirmed in Canada was in 1993 in a cow imported from Britain. In 1997, Canada outlawed feeding cows protein from other slaughtered animals.

Canada has close to 13.5 million cows and calves, with about 5.7 million, or 42 per cent, in Alberta. Canada's total beef exports amount to $2.2 billion annually.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/01/29/bse-study.html

 

[gcreekrch]

I wonder what the American housewife would prefer, Product of USA or Product of Canada-BSE Free? :wink:

 

[Aaron]

I wonder what the American housewife would prefer, Product of USA or Product of Canada-BSE Free? :wink:

That really should read.

"I wonder what the Canadian housewife would prefer, Product of Canada or Product of USA-BSE Free?"

You know darn well that the gutless chumps at CCA, and the provincial org.'s aren't going to make waves trying to get testing in Canada before the US.

 

[gcreekrch]

I wonder what the American housewife would prefer, Product of USA or Product of Canada-BSE Free? :wink:

That really should read.

"I wonder what the Canadian housewife would prefer, Product of Canada or Product of USA-BSE Free?"

You know darn well that the gutless chumps at CCA, and the provincial org.'s aren't going to make waves trying to get testing in Canada before the US.

Sad but probably true, although there aren't any BSE cattle in the US so why would they need to test? :wink:

 

[Aaron]

I wonder what the American housewife would prefer, Product of USA or Product of Canada-BSE Free? :wink:

That really should read.

"I wonder what the Canadian housewife would prefer, Product of Canada or Product of USA-BSE Free?"

You know darn well that the gutless chumps at CCA, and the provincial org.'s aren't going to make waves trying to get testing in Canada before the US.

Sad but probably true, although there aren't any BSE cattle in the US so why would they need to test? :wink:

I agree , but you know they gotta test all them 'dual-citizenship' slaughter cows. Those are the ones with BSE. :wink:

 

[flounder]

Nucleic Acids Research, 2009, Vol. 37, No. 2 550-556 © 2008 The Author(s) This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/uk/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Molecular Biology

Disease-specific motifs can be identified in circulating nucleic acids from live elk and cattle infected with transmissible spongiform encephalopathies

Paul M. K. Gordon1, Ekkehard Schütz2,3, Julia Beck2, Howard B. Urnovitz2, Catherine Graham4, Renee Clark4, Sandor Dudas4, Stefanie Czub4, Maria Sensen1, Bertram Brenig3, Martin H. Groschup5, Robert B. Church6 and Christoph W. Sensen1,* 1Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Faculty of Medicine, Sun Center of Excellence for Visual Genomics, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 4N1, 2Chronix Biomedical GmbH, Goethealle 8, D-37073 Göttingen, 3Institute of Veterinary Medicine, Georg-August-Universität, Burckhardtweg 2, D-37077 Göttingen, Germany, 4Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Animal Diseases Research Institute, National and OIE BSE Reference Laboratories, Lethbridge, AB, Canada T1J 3Z4, 5Institute for Novel and Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Federal Research Institute for Animal Health, Südufer 10, D-17439 Greifswald—Insel Riems, Germany and 6Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada T2N 4N1

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel: +1 403 220 4301; Fax: +1 403 210 9538; Email: [email protected]

Received August 19, 2008. Revised November 11, 2008. Accepted November 12, 2008.

To gain insight into the disease progression of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE), we searched for disease-specific patterns in circulating nucleic acids (CNA) in elk and cattle. In a 25-month time-course experiment, CNAs were isolated from blood samples of 24 elk (Cervus elaphus) orally challenged with chronic wasting disease (CWD) infectious material. In a separate experiment, blood-sample CNAs from 29 experimental cattle (Bos taurus) 40 months post-inoculation with clinical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) were analyzed according to the same protocol. Next-generation sequencing provided broad elucidation of sample CNAs: we detected infection-specific sequences as early as 11 months in elk (i.e. at least 3 months before the appearance of the first clinical signs) and we established CNA patterns related to BSE in cattle at least 4 months prior to clinical signs. In elk, a progression of CNA sequence patterns was found to precede and correlate with macro-observable disease progression, including delayed CWD progression in elk with PrP genotype LM. Some of the patterns identified contain transcription-factor-binding sites linked to endogenous retroviral integration. These patterns suggest that retroviruses may be connected to the manifestation of TSEs. Our results may become useful for the early diagnosis of TSE in live elk and cattle.

http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/37/2/550?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=prion&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=37&issue=2&resourcetype=HWCIT

Blood test may screen for mad cow disease - study Thu Jan 29, 2009 2:31pm EST

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN29304307

Friday, August 29, 2008 CREEKSTONE VS USDA COURT OF APPEALS, BUSH SAYS, NO WAY, NO HOW

Friday, August 29, 2008 CREEKSTONE VS USDA COURT OF APPEALS, BUSH SAYS, NO WAY, NO HOW United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT Argued May 9, 2008 Decided August 29, 2008 No. 07-5173 CREEKSTONE FARMS PREMIUM BEEF, L.L.C., APPELLEE/CROSS-APPELLANT v. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND EDWARD T. SCHAFER, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, APPELLANTS/CROSS-APPELLEES Consolidated with NO. 07-5199 Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 06cv00544) Eric Fleisig-Greene, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, argued the cause for the appellants/cross-appellees. Jeffrey S. Bucholtz, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Jeffrey A. Taylor, United States Attorney, and Mark B. Stern and Michael S. Raab, Attorneys, United States Department of Justice, were on brief. James J. Gilligan, Attorney, United States Department of Justice, and R. Craig Lawrence, Assistant United States Attorney, entered appearances.

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200808/07-5173-1135720.pdf

IN SHORT, NO WAY, NO HOW, LET MAD COW SPREAD SAYS BUSH. ...TSS

Court: US can block mad cow testing

By MATT APUZZO ; Associated Press Writer Published: August 29th, 2008 10:46 AM Updated: August 29th, 2008 11:03 AMWASHINGTON -- The Bush administration can prohibit meat packers from testing their animals for mad cow disease, a federal appeals court said Friday. The dispute pits the Agriculture Department, which tests about 1 percent of cows for the potentially deadly disease, against a Kansas meat packer that wants to test all its animals.

http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2008/08/creekstone-vs-usda-court-of-appeals.html


Wednesday, January 28, 2009 4:01 PM

OIE amending the Annex to Decision 2007/453/EC establishing the BSE status of Member States or third countries or regions thereof according to their BSE risk


http://docket-aphis-2006-0041.blogspot.com/2009/01/oie-amending-annex-to-decision.html



TSS


Thursday, January 29, 2009

Disease-specific motifs can be identified in circulating nucleic acids from live elk and cattle infected with transmissible spongiform encephalopathie


http://madcowtesting.blogspot.com/2009/01/disease-specific-motifs-can-be.html




would the USDA et al ever use a validated test, in sufficient numbers to find a TSE, that's another question ???



Monday, June 16, 2008
Mad Cows and Computer Models: The U.S. Response to BSE


http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2008/06/mad-cows-and-computer-models-us.html




snip... the risk factor for the USA and Canada in terms of the bovine TSE, are about the same due to many different aspects i.e. feed, srm, uk import, due to the open borders for so long. your math will not work with this. USDA et al will not allow it. i can give you 100s of thousands of tons, but when .005 grams is lethal to many bovines, does it really matter? and the open borders with live animals, deadstock, and feed, ........... your math will not work. in fact, in my opinion, just with the openness of Canada and their BSE problem compared to the USA. you should be more concerned here in the USA. in Texas here, we have the SSS policy in full effect at all times. shoot, shovel, and shut the hell up. ...............you think i am kidding........NOT.....and i don't have to prove it to anyone else. i have proven it to myself. that's my story and i'm sticken to it. it's late, it's after hours, and we are still post IKE, rebuilding. until later.........terry



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, January 21, 2009

R-CALF Group Urges Vilsack to Immediately Redress 3 Rulemaking Blunders by Bush USDA

http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/01/r-calf-group-urges-vilsack-to.html



let's see, a few examples of our extensive BSE surveillance plan ;

On December 23, 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a presumptive diagnosis of the first known case of BSE in the United States. It was in an adult Holstein cow from Washington State. This diagnosis was confirmed by an international reference laboratory in Weybridge, England, on December 25. Trace-back based on an ear-tag identification number and subsequent genetic testing confirmed that the BSE-infected cow was imported into the United States from Canada in August 2001. Because the animal was non-ambulatory (a "downer cow") at slaughter, brain tissue samples were taken by USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service as part of its targeted surveillance for BSE. However the animal's condition was attributed to complications from calving. After the animal was examined by a USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) veterinary medical officer both before and after slaughter, the carcass was released for use as food for human consumption. During slaughter, the tissues considered to be at high risk for the transmission of the BSE agent were removed. On December 24, 2003, FSIS recalled beef from cattle slaughtered in the same plant on the same day as the BSE positive cow. (see Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in a Dairy Cow - Washington State, 2003.)

On June 24, 2005, the USDA announced receipt of final results from The Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, confirming BSE in a cow that had conflicting test results in 2004. This cow was from Texas, died at approximately 12 years of age, and represented the first endemic case of BSE in the United States. (see Texas BSE Investigation, Final Epidemiology Report, August 2005 (PDF - 83 KB))

On March 15, 2006, the USDA announced the confirmation of BSE in a cow in Alabama. The newly confirmed case was identified in a non-ambulatory (downer) cow on a farm in Alabama. The animal was euthanized by a local veterinarian and buried on the farm. The age of the cow was estimated by examination of the dentition as 10-years-old. It had no ear tags or distinctive marks; the herd of origin could not be identified despite an intense investigation (see second featured item above and Alabama BSE Investigation, Final Epidemiology Report, May 2006).

snip...

Strains of BSE There is increasing evidence that there are different strains of BSE: the typical BSE strain responsible for the outbreak in the United Kingdom and two atypical strains (H and L strains).

Typical BSE strain -- The BSE strain responsible for most of the BSE cases in Canada is the same classic or typical strain linked to the outbreak in the United Kingdom. It is known to be preventable through elimination of BSE contaminated feed and has been causally linked to vCJD in humans. This typical strain has not yet been identified in any U.S.-born cattle.

Atypical BSE strain -- In July 2007, the UK Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) suggested that atypical BSE may be a distinct strain of prion disease. Unlike typical BSE, cases of atypical BSE, according to SEAC, may have risen spontaneously (although transmission through feed or the environment cannot be ruled out). Recently reported French surveillance data support this theory that unlike typical BSE, atypical BSE appears to represent sporadic disease

Both of the U.S.-born BSE cases and two of the 15 Canadian-born BSE cases were 10 years of age or older and three of these older North American cases for whom the strain type is presently known were linked to an atypical BSE strain known as the H-strain. Publication of the strain testing results on the 13 year-old BSE-infected Canadian cow identified in December 2007 is pending.

http://cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/


snip...



Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:37 PM


"we have found that H-BSE can infect humans."


personal communication with Professor Kong. ...TSS



snip...

http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/01/bovine-spongiform-encephalopathy-h-bse.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



Edited by Stanley B. Prusiner, University of California, San Francisco, CA, and approved September 12, 2005 (received for review March 21, 2005)

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/0502296102v1

NOR-98 ATYPICAL SCRAPIE 5 cases documented in USA in 5 different states USA 007

http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2008/04/seac-spongiform-encephalopathy-advisory.html

Tuesday, June 3, 2008 SCRAPIE USA UPDATE JUNE 2008 NOR-98 REPORTED PA

http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2008/06/scrapie-usa-update-june-2008-nor-98.html

http://nor-98.blogspot.com/

Monday, December 1, 2008 When Atypical Scrapie cross species barriers

http://nor-98.blogspot.com/2008/12/when-atypical-scrapie-cross-species.html


Saturday, January 24, 2009

Research Project: Detection of TSE Agents in Livestock, Wildlife, Agricultural Products, and the Environment Location: 2008 Annual Report

http://bse-atypical.blogspot.com/2009/01/research-project-detection-of-tse.html




Wednesday, January 28, 2009
TAFS1 Position Paper on BSE in small ruminants (January 2009)

http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2009/01/tafs1-position-paper-on-bse-in-small.html



Monday, September 1, 2008 RE-FOIA OF DECLARATION OF EXTRAORDINARY EMERGENCY BECAUSE OF AN ATYPICAL T.S.E. (PRION DISEASE) OF FOREIGN ORIGIN IN THE UNITED STATES [No. 00-072-1] September 1, 2008


http://foiamadsheepmadrivervalley.blogspot.com/2008/09/re-foia-of-declaration-of-extraordinary.html



Wednesday, January 28, 2009

TAFS1 STATEMENT ON TRANSMISSION OF SCRAPIE VIA MILK (January, 2009)

http://scrapie-usa.blogspot.com/2009/01/tafs1-statement-on-transmission-of.html


Wednesday, January 28, 2009
TAFS1 Position Paper on Specified Risk Materials (January, 2009)

TAFS INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR TRANSMISSIBLE ANIMAL DISEASES AND FOOD SAFETY a non-profit Swiss Foundation

(January 2009)

TAFS1 Position Paper on Specified Risk Materials



http://madcowspontaneousnot.blogspot.com/2009/01/tafs1-position-paper-on-specified-risk.html



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

 

[per]

The city folk were talking about this on the radio in Calgary. The banter went something like this...

Researchers have come up with a live test for BSE. answer was... Wow that is great. I would buy only tested product if it were available.

Aren't those city folk intuitive? Give the consumer what they want.

 

[gcreekrch]

Now if we have learned in the school we were taught in we would reserve this discovery for our OWN use. :wink:

 

[PORKER]

Ron ,move that test! BSE test out to us.

 

[gcreekrch]

Ron ,move that test! BSE test out to us.

:lol: :lol:

 

[Mrs.Greg]

Ron ,move that test! BSE test out to us.

IS this Rons test? This says Calgary and isn't Ron in Edmonton?

 

[bse-tester]

It is not our test folks. Yes Mrs. Greg, I am in Edmonton. Sorry I never responded sooner - sunny Mexico kept me busy. The blood test is a rather complex test in that there are many many complex proteins involved in the matrix and that is cause for concern. Identifying markers - essentially what they are doing - is also somewhat iffy. Many of the so-called markers can result from infection, too much blood sugar and so. The reasons are legion and to simply state that they are all related to being BSE markers is a bit of a stretch at best. I am waiting to see more of their data. Meanwhile, pressing ahead to find more money to conduct our validation at the US National Prion Surveillance Centre in Cleveland.