Pull the Scab

[don]

reader (the second): And I do agree with you that 100% testing is not necessary. The more I read and listen however, the more that I have come to believe that the entire high risk population should be tested if we want to know prevalence and trends.

If only clear thinking and logic could determine the course of action. Too many vested interests I guess. A logical testing program would not only show prevalence and trends but should provide data that would indicate causes and/or methods of transmission. There seems to be interests out there who feel the less that is known the more use BSE is as a political/economic weapon.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

reader (the second): And I do agree with you that 100% testing is not necessary. The more I read and listen however, the more that I have come to believe that the entire high risk population should be tested if we want to know prevalence and trends.

If only clear thinking and logic could determine the course of action. Too many vested interests I guess. A logical testing program would not only show prevalence and trends but should provide data that would indicate causes and/or methods of transmission. There seems to be interests out there who feel the less that is known the more use BSE is as a political/economic weapon.

I think I agree with both of you, Canada is testing the highest risk cattle. The 4D's and most of them are found on the farms as our packing plants don't accept them anymore. reader the second ,Canada tsted over 23,000 June to Janiary last year and to test a min. of 30,000 a year for the next few years. SRM'sare being removed from all cattle and as we now know these are different from different classes of cattle. I also encourage cattlepeople to turn in 4D's for testing as this is our problem and it won't go away if we ignore it.

 

[Jason]

Check out the Alberta Ag web site and there Alberta alone is on track to test 40,000 head this year, most all 4D on farm test.

We are less than 1/4 of the way through 2005 and we have tested 10,000 already.

We are testing and will have an amazing handle on how many cows out there have BSE.

Remember this is Alberta only.

 

[don]

I also encourage cattlepeople to turn in 4D's for testing as this is our problem and it won't go away if we ignore it.

if it happens it's great. once canada made it reasonable to have 4d's tested it started to happen and the numbers that are being tested now should not only give an accurate picture of what's out there but the results have been very encouraging. the problem is if slaughter houses don't accept 4d's and there is no program to make on farm sampling viable for the producer. then the 4d's just conveniently die at home and the issue is avoided.

 

[Murgen]

Reader, I have a question for you. How much money is spent in the US annually to find the cause and cure/treatment for CJD. Not vCJD, but CJD? Why is so much being spent on finding vectors of transmission of a desease(vCJD) that has not been proven to have affected one US citizen to date, except one who spent time in the UK? 350 people die annually of CJD in the US, sporatic cases!

 

[Murgen]

So reader, would it be fair to say that you believe there is too much emphasis put on the vCJD and CJD link and not enough effort put solely towards the CJD causes? My opinion is that there is to much blame put on "the human form of Mad cow" without looking at the human form independently. I think there are more cases of CJD that are present with no connection to beef what so ever. In saying that, one case is too many, but it still has not been proven that vCJD has anything to do with CJD.

 

[ranchwife]

So reader, would it be fair to say that you believe there is too much emphasis put on the vCJD and CJD link and not enough effort put solely towards the CJD causes? My opinion is that there is to much blame put on "the human form of Mad cow" without looking at the human form independently. I think there are more cases of CJD that are present with no connection to beef what so ever. In saying that, one case is too many, but it still has not been proven that vCJD has anything to do with CJD.

AGREED!!! now how do we get our governments to do the same!!! funny how when an elderly person begins to "lose it", they are diagnosed with alzheimers or dementia without the proper testing...makes ya stop and think, does it not??!

 

[Murgen]

Ranchwife, you're exactly right, makes you think? We all sit on here and talk about the "big" business and money interests within the beef industry, but what about the big business of the industrial industry and medical industries. Might it be that they are spending research dollars by diverting the real causes onto the beef industry?

 

[ranchwife]

Ranchwife, you're exactly right, makes you think? We all sit on here and talk about the "big" business and money interests within the beef industry, but what about the big business of the industrial industry and medical industries. Might it be that they are spending research dollars by diverting the real causes onto the beef industry?

absolutely!! makes me angry to think that MAYBE the all-powerful drug companies have their hands in things too..hmmmmm...why find a cure for such a devastating disease when we can just keep treating the "symptoms" and pocketing the money....just like AIDS....ya know they have a CURE out there, but can make millions more $ off of the drugs to prolong the agony!! makes ya sick to think about it!! makes ya also wonder "who" is sitting on the cure for CJD...human form or otherwise...unfortunately, it is all about the almighty DOLLAR!!!

 

[Murgen]

they don't know how to treat the symptoms and they frankly ignore so called "classic" or "sporadic" CJD.

Reader how would you know if they know how to treat the symptoms?

 

[Murgen]

Reader, sorry that sounded so insensitive, what I meant to say was, if they have a treatment they won't let anybody know until it is of signafigance value to themselves that they will start selling it!

 

[Mike]

Employing a new methodology, researchers in Israel recently discovered prions in urine, a finding that was previously thought to be improbable. Studies to date have shown that the protein can be found in urine well before symptoms appear and laboratories worldwide have been hastening to validate the discovery. PDL has now confirmed the presence of prions in urine samples of infected animals by using PDL's proprietary reagents. Research is currently underway to adapt the PDL test for analysis of urine samples, which would provide the world's first practical pre-mortem diagnostic test for BSE. Once the test has been proven in cattle, development and completion of a similar test for humans and other animals would be accelerated, ensuring safe blood products, donor tissue and surgical instruments.

 

[Murgen]

Reader, I'm not questioning your family's suffering, what I am questioning is the effort to blame this all on eating beef and the determination by some to attack our food safety. When ever you turn around someone is attacking our food for causing cancer, BSE, ecoli, etc.

Then you have certain groups that use this questioning to further their own cause of greed and benefit.

What is interesting is that it's always the life living animals that we question and never the enviornment we live in!

 

[ranchwife]

they don't know how to treat the symptoms and they frankly ignore so called "classic" or "sporadic" CJD.

Reader how would you know if they know how to treat the symptoms?

Murgen - my husband died of CJD 12 months ago. I have spent 15 months reading about it hours a day and talking with 400+ U.S. families who lost loved ones to CJD. We have compared notes on treatment. I have read the work of the few U.S. researchers focused on treatment. I have heard the father of the first U.K. teenager treated with Pentosan speak to us families. I have spoken with parents of young sCJD victims treated with quinacrine. I have read about the trials for the 3 or so drugs they have tried to treat it with. I have spoken with 30 TSE experts and another 30 non expert doctors who tried to save my husband's life. I have spent 4 months with hospice doctors treating my husband's symptoms as best as is possible and have heard horror stories of how others were treated when I saw that we were able to give my husband's poor body some relief (his brain was gone by that time).

reader....my most sincere condolences on the loss of your husband...losing a loved one from a "natural" disease is hard enough when you have treatment options that do not work, but your case was different...to stand and watch helplessly must have been hell!! I can only imagine....
when i talked of drugs to treat the symptoms and prolong the inevitable, however, i was talking about drugs for AIDS...as a nurse, i have taken care of countless aids victims and seen the incredible number of meds they must take every day just to live for "a little while longer"
may science (and God) send a cure for the horrific disease which took your husband and so many others
again, you have my prayers and condolences!!!

kris

 

[ranchwife]

Ranchwife - Again, without going into gorey details, we ended up also prolonging my husband's suffering because we did not know that he had a terminal disease and therefore took extreme measures to save his life when he had pneumonia. I cannot tell you the difference between how he looked after a week in hospice compared to how he looked in the hospital when they were using all sorts of devices and medications -- some totally wrong and harmful. Hospice took a tortured body and soothed him and made him relaxed and comforted. I became a fan of hospice.

There is very little I feel badly about in terms of our decisions but the medical interventions -- the many surgeries and drugs that were tried on my husband were needless and caused him pain and suffering. He was meant to die quickly from pneumonia, not to be tortured and then die slowly. We didn't know his diagnosis because so little is known about CJD in the U.S. and like most of the other families we dragged him from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital trying to find out what was wrong and to treat him. Actually since he had neurosurgery in the 1970s they should have suspected CJD had they known even a little about how it transmits but I ended up knowing much more about this disease than scores of neurologists, even in the premier teaching hospital in our area.

please remind me each and every day to be grateful for even the smallest of comforts....when i start in on a pity party of my own, i will take a moment to read this posting and think of the incredible strength you have shown and the pain you have endured....nothing i have gone through can even begin to compare!!