SIGHTINGS



Mad Cow - Attempts To
Create 'Super Cattle' May
Have Lead To BSE Disease
www.drudgereport.com
8-8-99
 

 
THE OBSERVER, the Londan daily newspaper, is reporting on Monday that the "mad cow" epidemic may have been caused by scientific attempts in the 1980s to create a super cow.
 
Reporters Patrick Wintour and Antony Barnett cite experts who "believe that hormones, taken from the brains of slaughterhouse carcasses, were injected into cows in a bid to create a new breed of super-cattle."
 
"The hormones, extracted from pituitary glands, were transmitted in an agent that spread mad cow disease and eventually infected humans as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nvCJD)."
 
The article describes how the use of human growth hormones in the past has created scientific nightmares as results:
 
"Twenty years ago, a similar use of human growth hormone, extracted from the pituitary glands of cadavers and given to children with congenital dwarfism, was shown to have spread CJD among humans."
 
While many scientists and cattle experts believe the theory to be compelling, a spokesman for the British Ministry of Agriculture told the paper, "It is a theory being considered, but it is only a theory."
 
So far, the disease has killed 43 people, and cost Britain upwards of $6.4 billion pounds ($9.7 billion USD).





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