CWD Question

[cedardell]

After reading reader {the second's) post on chronic waisting disease in Momtana I was wondering if anyone knew how CWD is spread from deer to deer? Why is it so much easier and cheaper to test for CWD? And most of all if it is spread from deer to deer can anybody explain why it can't be spread from deer to cattle? Also if a blood test is under development for mad cow disease in cattle, why isn't there a blood test for deer and elk? I also heard by rumor that CWD had been found in buffaloe. Is that correct? It also occured to me that in our state and most of the states surrounding us that deer are like hogs in that they are killed off at such a young age that very few live to be old enough to develop symptoms. So conceivably the young deer could be habouring small amounts of it and spreading it even though they are not ehibiting symptoms. If this is not the case then it would sem that wild deer are contracting the disease from some other source than deer to deer contact.

 

[Kathy]

There is a report out there somewhere, buried I suppose, as it was done in conjunction with the USDA (so I'm told).

Dr. Michael McDonnel of Nebraska, believes CWD is a caused by a copper deficiency. So he split 3 groups of elk in a penned situation, putting the groups on 3 different diets.

Group 1 - got no copper in their diet.

Group 2 - got copper sulfate in their diet at levels less than sufficient.

Group 3 - this group received the recommended daily allowance for copper.

Dr. McDonnell then introduced all 3 groups into a CWD environment:

Group 1 - (25 animals) or 55% of this group developed CWD(no copper)

Group 2 - (5 animals) or 7.5% contracted CWD (some copper)

Group 3 - HAD NO ANIMALS TEST POSITIVE FOR CWD! (adequate copper)

"Copper has been shown to stop the development of abnormal prions and to unfold abnormal prions early in their development" - Dr. Michael McDonnell, Nebraska.


link: search McDonnell CWD and Todd Stittleberg and you should get it.

(to long to write it down).

The same fate handed down to the elk and deer farms that where found to have CWD, will soon await cattle producers. That is, unless we fight back and prove this is caused by metal imbalances.

 

[Kathy]

Animals may have come into this environment already short on copper. Add to it their environment (within the penned areas being deficient of copper and you get the classic example of farmed elk/deer having CWD.

It is one thing to say they became ill by just by there and exposed to carcasses, it is quite another thing to say that this exposure is what causes CWD.

Unless you do controlled studies which examine the health of the environment, metals, minerals, contaminates (radioactive fallout), etc. as well as health of animal analysis - you are not getting the whole picture.

An AB feedlot owner stated, quite correctly, that "the consumption of ice cream is statistically related to the drowning deaths of children". This is absolutely true; however, this does not mean that ice cream causes children to drown.

Beth's husband Tom was killed as well. Their vehicle crashed into the back of a jack knifed semi, on a snowy day. The story is a little off, as if the roads were bad, you would probably be driving slow, ... It seems odd that they didn't have time to veer off the road instead of hitting the back end of this truck. Of course, I don't know all the particulars. But the world lost two expert CWD researchers, both had shown interest in the work of Mark Purdey.

Dr. McDonnell's test would seem to refute all these prion contamination hypotheses.

 

[Kathy]

Rocky Mountain Labs is owned/controlled by NIH??? Didn't know that.

Researchers around the world are using the RockyMountain Lab scrapie prions for their research on BSE/TSEs.

Why can't we us bse prions in our research???? Why are they using scrapie prions for their tranmission studies???

I also thought the BSE Inquiry's conclusion was that BSE was not caused by scrapie????