Mad Cow caused by 'garbage' on the brain: Ingram

By ALEX MCCUAIG, medicinehatnews.com (the entire piece is displayed here because the link to the Medicine Hat News is not working consistently)

The history of prion causing diseases such as mad cow (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE) chronic wasting disease (CWD) and its human counterpart Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease (CJD) is varied and poorly understood.

Science journalist Jay Ingram was in Medicine Hat Wednesday to discuss the history and what research is currently out there in connection with these diseases and the agent which causes them.
"There was a human prion disease discovered in Papau-New Guinea in the 50s that was spread by cannibalism," Ingram said during an interview with the News earlier this week.

"It's a fantastic medical detective story but it also has lessons for mad cow diseases as that was triggered by rendering dead animals with the disease and feeding it to others."

Ingram explains the prion spreads disease not like other agents as it's a protein molecule rather than a bacteria or virus. But unlike the millions of prions that are found in mammalian brain tissue, the disease carrying prions are "misfolded."

"If normal prions sitting on your brain cells come into contact with misfolded prions then they get recruited to misfold," he said.

This leads to accumulations of what Ingram termed "garbage" on the brain which it's believed causes diseases such as mad cow.

As for the life cycle for these prions, it depends on the variant, said Ingram.

Scrapie, the variant which affects sheep, and CWD, which infects deer, can exist in soil for at least a decade. He added it's not definitively know how long the BSE triggering prion can remain active.
CWD poses one of the biggest issues in tracking infected animals as it's almost impossible to find which deer have CWD before they are able to spread the prion which has a two or three year incubation period.

"If (the deer) are killed and consumed by a predator, then you will never know they were there but they will have been leaving prions all over the place," said Ingram. Adding that CWD potentially could have an effect on farmed elk and, if the infected deer migrate far enough to the north, see caribou herds put at risk.

While Ingram said research appears to concluded CWD won't transfer between those species, it's far from complete and could potentially put humans who rely on caribou at risk to contracting the disease.

The continued study of prion diseases is important, said Ingram, to unlocking the answers of how other degenerative neurological conditions such as Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's and Alzheimer's are caused.

"Some of the mechanisms in the spread of destruction in those three diseases are similar. They involve little deposits of misfolded proteins.

"It looks like that mechanism can spread to adjacent cells," said Ingram. "There is enough similarities to think the better we understand the prion diseases the more likely it is we might find a crucial connection, a way to interrupt that process, something that would lend itself to the treatment of these other diseases."

Bee gone

In a recent report, the UN's environmental agency warned that the world's bee population is likely to keep declining unless we change the way we manage the planet

Which crops rely most on bee pollination?
ESSENTIAL
* Cantaloupe
* Cocoa
* Pumpkin
* Macadamia
* Watermelon
* Kiwi
More

Report: Agriculture-Associated Diseases: Adapting Agriculture to Improve Human Health

Agriculture is critical for human welfare, providing

food, employment, income, and assets. In the past,

agricultural research and development largely focused

on improving production, productivity, and profitability of

agricultural enterprises. Nutrition and other benefits of

agriculture were not always optimized, while the negative

impacts on health, well-being, and the environment were

often ignored. This was especially problematic for livestock

systems, with especially complex negative and positive

impacts on human health and well-being.

An important negative effect of agricultural intensification

is disease. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) is

a notorious example of a disease that was fostered by

intensified agricultural production and spread through

lengthened poultry value chains and the global movement of

people and animals. More 

Letter: Farmers, not elk, being hunted

How would you feel if some people decided to use the media to attack your livelihood and way of life just to further their own agenda? We are appalled at the very personal attacks made recently by the Alberta Fish and Game Association (AFGA) and by a couple of obviously uninformed news writers.

I am a rancher from eastern Alberta. My husband and I have been farming elk for over 16 years. We have worked hard at improving our elk herd, building a business based on these wonderful animals that produce awesome products year after year — products that are sought after for improving the quality of life for people and their pets. More

Letter: Elk meat natural as any other

Your March 16 editorial: Go shoot a steer instead, is way off the mark. The proposed Livestock Diversity Amendment Act is worthy of our support.

We live in an age of obesity and hormonal disruption. You can blame at least part of that on the widespread practice of feeding cattle hormones and antibiotics. And recently a spokesman for the chicken industry admitted that antibiotics are routinely fed to chickens, not necessarily to combat disease, but to prevent it! No wonder we are becoming increasingly susceptible to superbugs. more

Chile lifts BSE-restrictions on US beef

After several years of lobbying, US officials have convinced Chile to lift all remaining BSE-related restrictions on US beef imports.

Updated Chilean guidelines just published by the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service remove previous age-based restrictions - opening the door to all US beef and beef by-products with the exception of a few select "ineligible" items. More.

Hunt-farm bill tweak to kill loopholes

Province insists 2002 position against 'abhorrent' practice will stand

 By Karen Kleiss 

 Agriculture Minister Jack Hayden said the province will amend Bill 11 to make certain Alberta does not unwittingly sanction controversial hunt farms. More