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More Problems in USDA!!!!!

A

Anonymous

Guest
BSE Testing Program Vendors Overpaid: U.S. Vet Rassigned; $1.2 Million Spent

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 10, 2006


by Lee Bergquist


May 10--A federal veterinarian in Madison has been reassigned after federal auditors concluded that he doctored records and approved $1.2 million in overpayments to contractors as part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture program to test for the presence of mad cow disease in the food chain.

Jim Rogers, spokesman for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, acknowledged that a veterinarian in charge of an area office had been reassigned after the audit and that the veterinarian is no longer in a position in which he handles financial matters.

Rogers said that the agency was still investigating the matter, including whether other actions could be taken against the official.

Rogers declined to identify who the official was, saying it was a personnel matter.

Linn A. Wilbur, the area veterinarian in charge of the inspection service's office in Madison, was recently reassigned to the service's eastern regional office in Raleigh, N.C., according to sources.

Wisconsin's state veterinarian, Robert Ehlenfeldt, also confirmed that inspection service officials had told the state agriculture department in Madison that Wilbur had been relieved of his duties and had been reassigned to North Carolina to work on avian influenza issues.

Ehlenfeldt said he did not know the reason for the reassignment.

When contacted by phone at his office in Raleigh, Wilbur declined to comment.

But sources said it was Wilbur who was the administrator identified in February in an inspector general's report on the U.S. Agriculture Department's detection program for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, that was expanded in 2004.

The report found irregularities in the management of different aspects of the program but also found no evidence that infected meat or tissue had entered the food supply.

The enhanced inspection program, which targets the highest-risk animals, was initiated in June 2004.

Included in the 130-page report were the findings that an area office of the inspection service had paid companies that provided sampling, carcass transportation, storage and disposal of cattle at levels exceeding cost guidelines or were not eligible for reimbursement.

Without naming the office or the veterinarian in question, the report says the veterinarian in charge agreed to the terms of 10 contracts from vendors without making any changes in them.

A few months later, superiors in the agency concluded that the disposal costs for cattle and cattle remains in the contracts were not eligible for payment.

The report says the officials instructed the veterinarian to change the contracts.

But in September 2004, the veterinarian "adjusted the proposed costs with the intention of compensating the third parties for the elimination of the disposal costs," the report says.

The official shifted the costs to other eligible categories, the report says.

The veterinarian "stated he changed supporting records because he believed he should honor the prior negotiated costs," the report says.

In addition, the report says investigators found that transportation costs for hauling cattle were estimated and that the veterinarian agreed that vendors were not paid for the actual number of miles driven.

As a result, at least $1.2 million of about $11.2 million paid by the federal agency were unsupported program costs,
the report says.

Five offices scrutinized

The inspector general's report notes that five inspection service offices were examined in the investigation, all of them in states with high cattle populations. They were in Madison; Topeka, Kan.; Sacramento, Calif.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Austin, Texas.

Aside from Madison, none of the other offices has had a change in supervising veterinarians in recent months, representatives of those offices told the Journal Sentinel.

The audit recommended that inspection service officials review the matter to determine whether improper payments were made and to try to recover funds.

In the agency's response, inspection service officials agreed with the recommendations.

Agency officials said they were concerned about the contracts with the vendors, including the way they were entered into and how they were managed.

But the agency said its own investigation found that because of a lack of documentation, it wasn't possible to determine the amount of improper payments that were made.

The inspection service also terminated all animal-collection agreements.

Service spokesman Rogers said the agency was trying to determine whether the money could be recovered and whether the subject of the investigation might face discipline.

"We are still working internally on what to do," Rogers said.

To date, two of more than 700,000 cattle tested nationally as part of the government's enhanced surveillance program were found to have had mad cow disease.
 

PORKER

Well-known member
It MUST be Mrs.Fong that;Had Five offices scrutinized

The inspector general's report notes that five inspection service offices were examined in the investigation, all of them in states with high cattle populations. They were in Madison; Topeka, Kan.; Sacramento, Calif.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Austin, Texas.
 

cedardell

Well-known member
Just how do you dispose of a BSE infected animal? According to research that Kathy or Reader the Second posted you can't bury it because prions live in the soil forever. If you completely vaporize it in an approved incinerator it couild be expensive. What other choices are there?
 

flounder

Well-known member
Interactions of prion proteins with soil

Liviana Leitaa,, Flavio Fornasiera, Maria De Nobilib, Alessandro Bertolic,

Sacha Genovesic, Paolo Sequid

aC.R.A. Consiglio per la Ricerca e Sperimentazione in Agricoltura—Istituto Sperimentale per la Nutrizione delle Piante, Sezione di Gorizia,

via Trieste 23, I-34170 Gorizia, Italy

bDipartimento di Scienze Agrarie ed Ambientali, Universita` di Udine, via delle Scienze 208, I-33100 Udine, Italy

cDipartimento di Chimica Biologica, Universita` di Padova, viale G. Colombo 3, I-35121 Padova, Italy

dC.R.A. Consiglio per la Ricerca e Sperimentazione in Agricoltura—Istituto Sperimentale per la Nutrizione delle Piante, via della Navicella 2,

I-00184 Roma, Italy

Received 10 September 2004; received in revised form 3 November 2005; accepted 7 November 2005

Abstract

Prions, are proteinaceous particles recognized as the agents of a class of neurodegenerative disorders, called transmissible spongiform

encephalopathies (TSE), or prion diseases. Epidemiological data suggest that TSE-contaminated environments may serve as source of

infectivity, but there is no information about adsorption of prions onto soil. We carried out experiments by mixing, healthy, or scrapieinfected

hamster brains homogenates with three types of soil suspended in different buffers: (i) two saline buffers, i.e., phosphate buffer

solution (PBS) and CaCl2 solution; (ii) a mix of nondenaturing detergents, i.e., Triton X-100 and sodium deoxycholate (DOC) solution;

(iii) a non-ionic detergent, i.e., lauryl maltoside; (iv) two anionic detergents, i.e., Sarkosyl or sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS); and (v) a

chaotropic agent, i.e., urea. The unbound prion proteins were detected in the supernatants (after centrifugation of soil suspension) by

Western blotting. Results clearly demonstrate that both the no infectious (PrPC) and infectious (PrPSc) forms are adsorbed by all soils.

Only 1% sodium dodecylsulphate (SDS) partially impeded the association of PrPC, but not that of PrPSc with the sandy loam soil.

Agents with different interacting properties towards hydrophilic and/or hydrophobic domains failed to extract PrPSc from sediments of

soil–brain homogenate mixtures. The strong interaction of PrPSc with soil favors the accumulation of prions in soils, especially if

amended with prion-containing organic fertilizers and/or whenever TSE-affected animal carcasses, placenta, and excreta in general are

buried or laid at the soil surface.



snip...



In conclusion, although these results cannot precisely

define the nature of the bonds between prions and soil

components, especially if they are reversible under conditions

other than those tested in the present study, the

apparent strength of such interactions suggests that prions

can be retained, and accumulate in soil, especially if

amended with prion-containing organic fertilizers and/or

whenever TSE-affected animal carcasses, placenta, and

excreta in general are buried or laid at the soil surface

(Miller et al., 2004). If the adsorbed prions also retain their

pathological activity (Brown and Gajdusek, 1991; Leita et

al., unpublished results), they could represent a hazardous

environmental source of infectivity, and provide a further

explanation for the horizontal transmissibility of TSE

forms, such as scrapie and CWD.



r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.



0038-0717/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2005.11.018

==================================



PAUL BROWN SCRAPIE SOIL TEST

http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/files/sc/seac07/tab03.pdf



Some unofficial information from a source on the inside looking out - personal/private communication

Confidential!!!!

As early as 1992-3 there had been long studies conducted on small
pastures containing scrapie infected sheep at the sheep research station
associated with the Neuropathogenesis Unit in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Whether these are documented...I don't know. But personal recounts both
heard and recorded in a daily journal indicate that leaving the pastures
free and replacing the topsoil completely at least 2 feet of thickness
each year for SEVEN years....and then when very clean (proven scrapie
free) sheep were placed on these small pastures.... the new sheep also
broke out with scrapie and passed it to offspring. I am not sure that TSE
contaminated ground could ever be free of the agent!!
A very frightening revelation!!!

----------



> ===========================================
>
> Furthermore, an unpublished study had indicated low
>
> level absorption of PrP from soil by tomato plants although it
>
> should be noted that this study had not been repeated. Details of
>
> this work would be sent to the SEAC Secretary.
>
> ========================
>
>



http://www.seac.gov.uk/minutes/draft91.pdf



Published online before print March 14, 2000, 10.1073/pnas.050566797;
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 97, Issue 7, 3418-3421, March 28, 2000

Medical Sciences
New studies on the heat resistance of hamster-adapted scrapie agent: Threshold survival after ashing at 600°C suggests an inorganic template of replication
Paul Brown*, [dagger ] , Edward H. Rau [Dagger ] , Bruce K. Johnson*, Alfred E. Bacote*, Clarence J. Gibbs Jr.*, and D. Carleton Gajdusek§

* Laboratory of Central Nervous System Studies, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and [Dagger ] Environmental Protection Branch, Division of Safety, Office of Research Services, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892; and § Institut Alfred Fessard, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 91198 Gif sur Yvette, France

Contributed by D. Carleton Gajdusek, December 22, 1999

One-gram samples from a pool of crude brain tissue from hamsters infected with the 263K strain of hamster-adapted scrapie agent were placed in covered quartz-glass crucibles and exposed for either 5 or 15 min to dry heat at temperatures ranging from 150°C to 1,000°C. Residual infectivity in the treated samples was assayed by the intracerebral inoculation of dilution series into healthy weanling hamsters, which were observed for 10 months; disease transmissions were verified by Western blot testing for proteinase-resistant protein in brains from clinically positive hamsters. Unheated control tissue contained 9.9 log10LD50/g tissue; after exposure to 150°C, titers equaled or exceeded 6 log10LD50/g, and after exposure to 300°C, titers equaled or exceeded 4 log10LD50/g. Exposure to 600°C completely ashed the brain samples, which, when reconstituted with saline to their original weights, transmitted disease to 5 of 35 inoculated hamsters. No transmissions occurred after exposure to 1,000°C. These results suggest that an inorganic molecular template with a decomposition point near 600°C is capable of nucleating the biological replication of the scrapie agent.

snip...



http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/7/3418



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