Detecting BSE in the eyes of cows - major breakthrough?

[Mike]

Too easy. The USDA would never go for it.

They prefer the "Gold Standard" method that was outdated 6-7 years ago. :???:

 

[Mike]

I have been aware that this is theoretically possible for a year or more but I did not know of any concerted research in the area.

Don't get your hopes up too big, or it will be like the Astros last night. I started to tell you when you were whoopdee-doooing over the home run in the seventh last night that the game wasn't over. :wink:

Speaking of BSE related research. I don't think I have ever seen such diversification (or going in all directions) in research for a disease. When the daylight of prion diseases comes up, it's going to be big, real big. We're talking "Fountain of Youth" stuff here.

 

[Anonymous]

Pall Shows Mad Cow Filter Data

Filter could clean blood supplies of agent causing human form of mad cow disease.
October 18, 2005

Health filtration company Pall is revealing new data to blood collection and storage experts this week showing that red blood cells passed through its prion filter system retain good therapeutic quality for treating the human form of mad cow disease.



The company will present the findings of a study by the American Red Cross and the Eastern Virginia Medical School, in Norfolk, Virginia, at the AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) annual conference in Seattle.



Pall's filter system is the world's first technology that can remove the proteins that cause the human form of mad cow disease from the oxygen-carrying cells in blood. It does this with 99.9 percent effectiveness, according to another study conducted by the Departments of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Pathology of the New York University School of Medicine.



"This study, a first with a true human form of prion disease, provides additional confirmation of the performance of our technology to remove all types of prions that can adversely affect people," said Sam Coker, principal scientist at East Hills, New York-based Pall.


The new data shows an average of approximately 83 to 85 percent of red blood cells recover from the processing.



This figure is above the U.S. Food and Drug Administration minimum of 75 percent, and will be of significant interest to the British and Irish governments. Their blood transfusion services are currently evaluating Pall's Leukotrap Affinity Prion Reduction Filter System as a method of safeguarding their national blood supplies.



Transfusion Danger

In July the United Kingdom's Department of Health confirmed that three people who developed the human form of mad cow disease, known as vCJD, may have developed the disease because they received infected blood in transfusions.



In March 2004, the country banned all blood donations from people who had themselves previously received blood from transfusions.



"We believe that the ramp-up for Pall's mad cow prion filter will be quick, but looks more likely to happen in 2007," wrote UBS analyst Jeffrey Cianci in a recent research report.




"Longer term, if highly successful [in European governments' testing], we believe this could virtually double Pall's medical filter sales," he added.

 

[cedardell]

These are outstanding posts. Very interesting. And look we're finally getting positive input here. Now if we could just figure some way to save the Canadians from the impending ice age we'll be good to go. :lol:

 

[adventureman]

Could the filter be used for diagnosis of BSE? Take a pint of blood out of every animal in your herd run it through a filter, and the ones that are infected should show up right?
________
launch box

 

[mark purdey]

Detecting Alzheimer's Early with Non-Invasive Optical Tools

Building upon the stunning recent discovery that Alzheimer's disease
can be detected early by looking for telltale proteins in the eye,
researchers at this week's Frontiers in Optics
<http://www.osa.org/meetings/annual> meeting of the Optical Society
of America presented a pair of optical tests, both in clinical
trials, that can potentially diagnose the disease in its beginning
stages. Such tests may not only improve patients' chances to start
treatment earlier, but they could also speed development of new
Alzheimer's drugs.

Two years ago (Goldstein /et al./, Lancet, 12 April 2003), Lee
Goldstein of Harvard Medical School

This seems to be very important. Due to my own interests in pathological changes in the retina ( resulting from rogue metal substitutions ? )during the early stages of the TSE disease process, two of the replies to my questionaire that I had attempted to send out to the relatives of variant CJD victims here in the UK had both raised the point that the corneas of their loved ones had changed colour - to a greeny-grey - during the early stages of the disease. This seemed to be a very important observation to me , but they had both been ignored when they had raised this point with their health authorities - typical !! they always arrogantly squash these kind of grass roots anecdotal observations and outcast them as irrelevant ..... when they all too frequently hold the causal clues . the majority of discoveries hail from anecdotal observations . Look at the Limey sailor , etc