- Note - Dr. Doyle and I have maintained for many years
that Mad Cow and CWD in deer/elk, etc are being spread via body fluids.
This new research validates our position further. Permanent contamination
of the soil on infected Canadian elk farms is the reason those farms and
all their land are now classified as unusable for ANY agrarian purposes...and
are closed/quarantined. - Jeff
-
- By Maggie Fox
- Reuters Health and Science Correspondent
- 10-14-5
-
- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
agent that causes mad cow disease, scrapie and chronic wasting disease
in deer and elk may sometimes be spread through urine, Swiss researchers
reported on Thursday.
-
- They found that, under certain conditions in mice, the
deformed brain proteins known as prions that transmit the disease could
be found in urine.
-
- "We tested whether chronic inflammatory kidney disorders
would trigger excretion of prion infectivity into urine," Adriano
Aguzzi of the University Hospital of Zurich and colleagues wrote in their
report, published in the journal Science.
-
- Scrapie-infected mice with kidney inflammation excreted
prions in their urine, and these prions infected other mice with scrapie
when injected, Aguzzi and colleagues found.
-
- It is a long way from this laboratory experiment to a
real-world setting in which grazing or browsing animals pick up and become
infected with urine from others, but the researchers say it shows such
transmission is theoretically possible.
-
- Aguzzi, an expert in prion diseases, and his colleagues
said the finding could help explain how wild deer and elk in western US
states and elsewhere are becoming infected with chronic wasting disease.
-
- It might also explain how scrapie is spread among sheep.
-
- These diseases, known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies,
or TSEs, include bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or mad cow disease),
scrapie and, in humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD.
-
- The diseases are caused by a deformed version of a brain
protein called a prion, which is harder to destroy than a virus or bacteria
and can spread from animal to animal.
-
- Scrapie has existed for hundreds of years in sheep and
was never known to infect another species. In the 1980s, BSE broke out
among British cattle and was eventually traced to feed that may have contained
the remains of scrapie-infected sheep.
-
- Later, people who ate beef began to develop a version
of CJD that has been linked to BSE-infected meat. Called nvCJD, it is different
from ordinary CJD and has killed 151 people in Britain so far and a handful
in other countries.
-
- Normally, CJD, which has no known cause and no cure,
affects about one in a million people globally.
-
- All the diseases gradually destroy the brain and cause
death. There is no treatment.
-
- Agriculture officials around the world have changed the
rules on animal feed, but cases of BSE still occur on occasion, causing
panic among cattle traders and sometimes disrupting the cattle products
trade.
-
- Cosmetics and pharmaceuticals made using beef products
are now checked for components that could transmit the prions, including
brain, nerve matter, spleen and other organs. The researchers suggest that
urine might be added to the list of watched-for products.
-
- Aguzzi's team said the mouse urine did not contain prions
when they did not have kidney inflammation. But they said inflammatory
kidney conditions caused by bacteria, viruses or autoimmune diseases are
common and noted that they can also be associated with advanced dementia
-- a symptom of CJD.
-
- They also said one team has reported finding prions in
the urine of a CJD patient and another team infected mice with CJD by injecting
them with urine from one CJD patient.
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
-
- http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?
- Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
-
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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