SCRAPIE USA

Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy TSE Prion PrP sheep and goats

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Location: BACLIFF, Texas, United States

My mother was murdered by what I call corporate and political homicide i.e. FOR PROFIT! she died from a rare phenotype of CJD i.e. the Heidenhain Variant of Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease i.e. sporadic, simply meaning from unknown route and source. I have simply been trying to validate her death DOD 12/14/97 with the truth. There is a route, and there is a source. There are many here in the USA. WE must make CJD and all human TSE, of all age groups 'reportable' Nationally and Internationally, with a written CJD questionnaire asking real questions pertaining to route and source of this agent. Friendly fire has the potential to play a huge role in the continued transmission of this agent via the medical, dental, and surgical arena. We must not flounder any longer. ...TSS

Saturday, April 23, 2016

SCRAPIE WS-01: Prion diseases in animals and zoonotic potential 2016

Prion. 10:S15-S21. 2016 ISSN: 1933-6896 printl 1933-690X online

 

Taylor & Francis

 

Prion 2016 Animal Prion Disease Workshop Abstracts

 

WS-01: Prion diseases in animals and zoonotic potential

 

Juan Maria Torres a, Olivier Andreoletti b, J uan-Carlos Espinosa a. Vincent Beringue c. Patricia Aguilar a,

 

Natalia Fernandez-Borges a. and Alba Marin-Moreno a

 

"Centro de Investigacion en Sanidad Animal ( CISA-INIA ). Valdeolmos, Madrid. Spain; b UMR INRA -ENVT 1225 Interactions Holes Agents Pathogenes. ENVT. Toulouse. France: "UR892. Virologie lmmunologie MolécuIaires, Jouy-en-Josas. France

 

Dietary exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) contaminated bovine tissues is considered as the origin of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob (vCJD) disease in human. To date, BSE agent is the only recognized zoonotic prion. Despite the variety of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) agents that have been circulating for centuries in farmed ruminants there is no apparent epidemiological link between exposure to ruminant products and the occurrence of other form of TSE in human like sporadic Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (sCJD). However, the zoonotic potential of the diversity of circulating TSE agents has never been systematically assessed. The major issue in experimental assessment of TSEs zoonotic potential lies in the modeling of the ‘species barrier‘, the biological phenomenon that limits TSE agents’ propagation from a species to another. In the last decade, mice genetically engineered to express normal forms of the human prion protein has proved essential in studying human prions pathogenesis and modeling the capacity of TSEs to cross the human species barrier.

 

To assess the zoonotic potential of prions circulating in farmed ruminants, we study their transmission ability in transgenic mice expressing human PrPC (HuPrP-Tg). Two lines of mice expressing different forms of the human PrPC (129Met or 129Val) are used to determine the role of the Met129Val dimorphism in susceptibility/resistance to the different agents.

 

These transmission experiments confirm the ability of BSE prions to propagate in 129M- HuPrP-Tg mice and demonstrate that Met129 homozygotes may be susceptible to BSE in sheep or goat to a greater degree than the BSE agent in cattle and that these agents can convey molecular properties and neuropathological indistinguishable from vCJD. However homozygous 129V mice are resistant to all tested BSE derived prions independently of the originating species suggesting a higher transmission barrier for 129V-PrP variant.

 

Transmission data also revealed that several scrapie prions propagate in HuPrP-Tg mice with efficiency comparable to that of cattle BSE. While the efficiency of transmission at primary passage was low, subsequent passages resulted in a highly virulent prion disease in both Met129 and Val129 mice. Transmission of the different scrapie isolates in these mice leads to the emergence of prion strain phenotypes that showed similar characteristics to those displayed by MM1 or VV2 sCJD prion. These results demonstrate that scrapie prions have a zoonotic potential and raise new questions about the possible link between animal and human prions.

 



Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES

 

Title: Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent incubation period

 

Authors

 

item Comoy, Emmanuel - item Mikol, Jacqueline - item Luccantoni-Freire, Sophie - item Correia, Evelyne - item Lescoutra-Etchegaray, Nathalie - item Durand, Valérie - item Dehen, Capucine - item Andreoletti, Olivier - item Casalone, Cristina - item Richt, Juergen item Greenlee, Justin item Baron, Thierry - item Benestad, Sylvie - item Hills, Bob - item Brown, Paul - item Deslys, Jean-Philippe -

 

Submitted to: Scientific Reports Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: May 28, 2015 Publication Date: June 30, 2015 Citation: Comoy, E.E., Mikol, J., Luccantoni-Freire, S., Correia, E., Lescoutra-Etchegaray, N., Durand, V., Dehen, C., Andreoletti, O., Casalone, C., Richt, J.A., Greenlee, J.J., Baron, T., Benestad, S., Brown, P., Deslys, J. 2015. Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent incubation period. Scientific Reports. 5:11573.

 

Interpretive Summary: The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (also called prion diseases) are fatal neurodegenerative diseases that affect animals and humans. The agent of prion diseases is a misfolded form of the prion protein that is resistant to breakdown by the host cells. Since all mammals express prion protein on the surface of various cells such as neurons, all mammals are, in theory, capable of replicating prion diseases. One example of a prion disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE; also called mad cow disease), has been shown to infect cattle, sheep, exotic undulates, cats, non-human primates, and humans when the new host is exposed to feeds or foods contaminated with the disease agent. The purpose of this study was to test whether non-human primates (cynomologous macaque) are susceptible to the agent of sheep scrapie. After an incubation period of approximately 10 years a macaque developed progressive clinical signs suggestive of neurologic disease. Upon postmortem examination and microscopic examination of tissues, there was a widespread distribution of lesions consistent with a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. This information will have a scientific impact since it is the first study that demonstrates the transmission of scrapie to a non-human primate with a close genetic relationship to humans. This information is especially useful to regulatory officials and those involved with risk assessment of the potential transmission of animal prion diseases to humans. Technical Abstract: Classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (c-BSE) is an animal prion disease that also causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Over the past decades, c-BSE's zoonotic potential has been the driving force in establishing extensive protective measures for animal and human health.

 

*** In complement to the recent demonstration that humanized mice are susceptible to scrapie, we report here the first observation of direct transmission of a natural classical scrapie isolate to a macaque after a 10-year incubation period. Neuropathologic examination revealed all of the features of a prion disease: spongiform change, neuronal loss, and accumulation of PrPres throughout the CNS.

 

*** This observation strengthens the questioning of the harmlessness of scrapie to humans, at a time when protective measures for human and animal health are being dismantled and reduced as c-BSE is considered controlled and being eradicated.

 

*** Our results underscore the importance of precautionary and protective measures and the necessity for long-term experimental transmission studies to assess the zoonotic potential of other animal prion strains.

 


 

Suspect symptoms

 

What if you can catch old-fashioned CJD by eating meat from a sheep infected with scrapie?

 

28 Mar 01 Most doctors believe that sCJD is caused by a prion protein deforming by chance into a killer. But Singeltary thinks otherwise. He is one of a number of campaigners who say that some sCJD, like the variant CJD related to BSE, is caused by eating meat from infected animals. Their suspicions have focused on sheep carrying scrapie, a BSE-like disease that is widespread in flocks across Europe and North America.

 

Now scientists in France have stumbled across new evidence that adds weight to the campaigners' fears. To their complete surprise, the researchers found that one strain of scrapie causes the same brain damage in mice as sCJD.

 

"This means we cannot rule out that at least some sCJD may be caused by some strains of scrapie," says team member Jean-Philippe Deslys of the French Atomic Energy Commission's medical research laboratory in Fontenay-aux-Roses, south-west of Paris. Hans Kretschmar of the University of Göttingen, who coordinates CJD surveillance in Germany, is so concerned by the findings that he now wants to trawl back through past sCJD cases to see if any might have been caused by eating infected mutton or lamb...

 

2001

 

Suspect symptoms

 

What if you can catch old-fashioned CJD by eating meat from a sheep infected with scrapie?

 

28 Mar 01

 

Like lambs to the slaughter

 

31 March 2001

 

by Debora MacKenzie Magazine issue 2284.

 

FOUR years ago, Terry Singeltary watched his mother die horribly from a degenerative brain disease. Doctors told him it was Alzheimer's, but Singeltary was suspicious. The diagnosis didn't fit her violent symptoms, and he demanded an autopsy. It showed she had died of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

Most doctors believe that sCJD is caused by a prion protein deforming by chance into a killer. But Singeltary thinks otherwise. He is one of a number of campaigners who say that some sCJD, like the variant CJD related to BSE, is caused by eating meat from infected animals. Their suspicions have focused on sheep carrying scrapie, a BSE-like disease that is widespread in flocks across Europe and North America.

 

Now scientists in France have stumbled across new evidence that adds weight to the campaigners' fears. To their complete surprise, the researchers found that one strain of scrapie causes the same brain damage in mice as sCJD.

 

"This means we cannot rule out that at least some sCJD may be caused by some strains of scrapie," says team member Jean-Philippe Deslys of the French Atomic Energy Commission's medical research laboratory in Fontenay-aux-Roses, south-west of Paris. Hans Kretschmar of the University of Göttingen, who coordinates CJD surveillance in Germany, is so concerned by the findings that he now wants to trawl back through past sCJD cases to see if any might have been caused by eating infected mutton or lamb.

 

Scrapie has been around for centuries and until now there has been no evidence that it poses a risk to human health. But if the French finding means that scrapie can cause sCJD in people, countries around the world may have overlooked a CJD crisis to rival that caused by BSE.

 

Deslys and colleagues were originally studying vCJD, not sCJD. They injected the brains of macaque monkeys with brain from BSE cattle, and from French and British vCJD patients. The brain damage and clinical symptoms in the monkeys were the same for all three. Mice injected with the original sets of brain tissue or with infected monkey brain also developed the same symptoms.

 

As a control experiment, the team also injected mice with brain tissue from people and animals with other prion diseases: a French case of sCJD; a French patient who caught sCJD from human-derived growth hormone; sheep with a French strain of scrapie; and mice carrying a prion derived from an American scrapie strain. As expected, they all affected the brain in a different way from BSE and vCJD. But while the American strain of scrapie caused different damage from sCJD, the French strain produced exactly the same pathology.

 

"The main evidence that scrapie does not affect humans has been epidemiology," says Moira Bruce of the neuropathogenesis unit of the Institute for Animal Health in Edinburgh, who was a member of the same team as Deslys. "You see about the same incidence of the disease everywhere, whether or not there are many sheep, and in countries such as New Zealand with no scrapie." In the only previous comparisons of sCJD and scrapie in mice, Bruce found they were dissimilar.

 

But there are more than 20 strains of scrapie, and six of sCJD. "You would not necessarily see a relationship between the two with epidemiology if only some strains affect only some people," says Deslys. Bruce is cautious about the mouse results, but agrees they require further investigation. Other trials of scrapie and sCJD in mice, she says, are in progress.

 

People can have three different genetic variations of the human prion protein, and each type of protein can fold up two different ways. Kretschmar has found that these six combinations correspond to six clinical types of sCJD: each type of normal prion produces a particular pathology when it spontaneously deforms to produce sCJD.

 

But if these proteins deform because of infection with a disease-causing prion, the relationship between pathology and prion type should be different, as it is in vCJD. "If we look at brain samples from sporadic CJD cases and find some that do not fit the pattern," says Kretschmar, "that could mean they were caused by infection."

 

There are 250 deaths per year from sCJD in the US, and a similar incidence elsewhere. Singeltary and other US activists think that some of these people died after eating contaminated meat or "nutritional" pills containing dried animal brain. Governments will have a hard time facing activists like Singeltary if it turns out that some sCJD isn't as spontaneous as doctors have insisted.

 

Deslys's work on macaques also provides further proof that the human disease vCJD is caused by BSE. And the experiments showed that vCJD is much more virulent to primates than BSE, even when injected into the bloodstream rather than the brain. This, says Deslys, means that there is an even bigger risk than we thought that vCJD can be passed from one patient to another through contaminated blood transfusions and surgical instruments.

 


 

Then follow up with PNAS studies from which new scientist article written from;

 

Adaptation of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy agent to primates and comparison with Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease: Implications for human health

 

THE findings from Corinne Ida Lasmézas*, [dagger] , Jean-Guy Fournier*, Virginie Nouvel*,

 

Hermann Boe*, Domíníque Marcé*, François Lamoury*, Nicolas Kopp [Dagger

 

] , Jean-Jacques Hauw§, James Ironside¶, Moira Bruce [||] , Dominique

 

Dormont*, and Jean-Philippe Deslys* et al, that The agent responsible for French iatrogenic growth hormone-linked CJD taken as a control is very different from vCJD but is similar to that found in one case of sporadic CJD and one sheep scrapie isolate;

 


 

CWD to CJD in humans (why not?), as easy as BSE/Scrapie;

 

The EMBO Journal, Vol. 19, No. 17 pp. 4425-4430, 2000

 

© European Molecular Biology Organization

 

Evidence of a molecular barrier limiting susceptibility of humans, cattle and sheep to chronic wasting disease

 

G.J. Raymond1, A. Bossers2, L.D. Raymond1, K.I. O?Rourke3,

 

L.E. McHolland4, P.K. Bryant III4, M.W. Miller5, E.S. Williams6, M.

 

Smits2

 

and B. Caughey1,7

 

1NIAID/NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, MT 59840,

 

3USDA/ARS/ADRU, Pullman, WA 99164-7030, 4USDA/ARS/ABADRL,

 

Laramie, WY 82071, 5Colorado Division of Wildlife, Wildlife Research

 

Center, Fort Collins, CO 80526-2097, 6Department of Veterinary Sciences,

 

University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82070, USA and 2ID-Lelystad,

 

Institute for Animal Science and Health, Lelystad, The Netherlands

 

7Corresponding author e-mail: bcaughey@nih.gov Received June 7, 2000;

 

revised July 3, 2000; accepted July 5, 2000.

 

Abstract

 

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) of deer and elk, and little is known about its transmissibility to other species. An important factor controlling interspecies TSE susceptibility is prion protein (PrP) homology between the source and recipient species/genotypes. Furthermore, the efficiency with which the protease-resistant PrP (PrP-res) of one species induces the in vitro conversion of the normal PrP (PrP-sen) of another species to the protease-resistant state correlates with the cross-species transmissibility of TSE agents. Here we show that the CWD-associated PrP-res (PrPCWD) of cervids readily induces the conversion of recombinant cervid PrP-sen molecules to the protease-resistant state in accordance with the known transmissibility of CWD between cervids. In contrast, PrPCWD-induced conversions of human and bovine PrP-sen were much less efficient, and conversion of ovine PrP-sen was intermediate. These results demonstrate a barrier at the molecular level that should limit the susceptibility of these non-cervid species to CWD.

 

snip...

 

Clearly, it is premature to draw firm conclusions about CWD passing naturally into humans, cattle and sheep, but the present results suggest that CWD transmissions to humans would be as limited by PrP incompatibility as transmissions of BSE or sheep scrapie to humans. Although there is no evidence that sheep scrapie has affected humans, it is likely that BSE has caused variant CJD in 74 people (definite and probable variant CJD cases to date according to the UK CJD Surveillance Unit). Given the presumably large number of people exposed to BSE infectivity, the susceptibility of humans may still be very low compared with cattle, which would be consistent with the relatively inefficient conversion of human PrP-sen by PrPBSE. Nonetheless, since humans have apparently been infected by BSE, it would seem prudent to take reasonable measures to limit exposure of humans (as well as sheep and cattle) to CWD infectivity as has been recommended for other animal TSEs.

 

snip...

 


 

Scrapie to Humans USA?

 

1: Neuroepidemiology. 1985;4(4):240-9. Related Articles,

 

Links

 

Sheep consumption: a possible source of spongiform encephalopathy in humans.

 

Davanipour Z, Alter M, Sobel E, Callahan M.

 

A fatal spongiform encephalopathy of sheep and goats (scrapie) shares many characteristics with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a similar dementing illness of humans. To investigate the possibility that CJD is acquired by ingestion of contaminated sheep products, we collected information on production, slaughtering practices, and marketing of sheep in Pennsylvania. The study revealed that sheep were usually marketed before central nervous system signs of scrapie are expected to appear; breeds known to be susceptible to the disease were the most common breeds raised in the area; sheep were imported from other states including those with a high frequency of scrapie; use of veterinary services on the sheep farms investigated and, hence, opportunities to detect the disease were limited; sheep producers in the area knew little about scrapie despite the fact that the disease has been reported in the area, and animal organs including sheep organs were sometimes included in processed food. Therefore, it was concluded that in Pennsylvania there are some 'weak links' through which scrapie-infected animals could contaminate human food, and that consumption of these foods could perhaps account for spongiform encephalopathy in humans. The weak links observed are probably not unique to Pennsylvania.

 

PMID: 3915057 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

 


 

2015

 

O.05: Transmission of prions to primates after extended silent incubation periods: Implications for BSE and scrapie risk assessment in human populations

 

Emmanuel Comoy, Jacqueline Mikol, Valerie Durand, Sophie Luccantoni, Evelyne Correia, Nathalie Lescoutra, Capucine Dehen, and Jean-Philippe Deslys Atomic Energy Commission; Fontenay-aux-Roses, France

 

Prion diseases (PD) are the unique neurodegenerative proteinopathies reputed to be transmissible under field conditions since decades. The transmission of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) to humans evidenced that an animal PD might be zoonotic under appropriate conditions. Contrarily, in the absence of obvious (epidemiological or experimental) elements supporting a transmission or genetic predispositions, PD, like the other proteinopathies, are reputed to occur spontaneously (atpical animal prion strains, sporadic CJD summing 80% of human prion cases). Non-human primate models provided the first evidences supporting the transmissibiity of human prion strains and the zoonotic potential of BSE. Among them, cynomolgus macaques brought major information for BSE risk assessment for human health (Chen, 2014), according to their phylogenetic proximity to humans and extended lifetime. We used this model to assess the zoonotic potential of other animal PD from bovine, ovine and cervid origins even after very long silent incubation periods.

 

*** We recently observed the direct transmission of a natural classical scrapie isolate to macaque after a 10-year silent incubation period,

 

***with features similar to some reported for human cases of sporadic CJD, albeit requiring fourfold long incubation than BSE. Scrapie, as recently evoked in humanized mice (Cassard, 2014),

 

***is the third potentially zoonotic PD (with BSE and L-type BSE),

 

***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases. We will present an updated panorama of our different transmission studies and discuss the implications of such extended incubation periods on risk assessment of animal PD for human health.

 

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

 

***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases***

 

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

 

***our findings suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to sheep and human. Bioassay will be required to determine whether the PMCA products are infectious to these animals.

 

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

 


 

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

 

*** Evidence for zoonotic potential of ovine scrapie prions

 

Hervé Cassard,1, n1 Juan-Maria Torres,2, n1 Caroline Lacroux,1, Jean-Yves Douet,1, Sylvie L. Benestad,3, Frédéric Lantier,4, Séverine Lugan,1, Isabelle Lantier,4, Pierrette Costes,1, Naima Aron,1, Fabienne Reine,5, Laetitia Herzog,5, Juan-Carlos Espinosa,2, Vincent Beringue5, & Olivier Andréoletti1, Affiliations Contributions Corresponding author Journal name: Nature Communications Volume: 5, Article number: 5821 DOI: doi:10.1038/ncomms6821 Received 07 August 2014 Accepted 10 November 2014 Published 16 December 2014 Article tools Citation Reprints Rights & permissions Article metrics

 

Abstract

 

Although Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is the cause of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans, the zoonotic potential of scrapie prions remains unknown. Mice genetically engineered to overexpress the human ​prion protein (tgHu) have emerged as highly relevant models for gauging the capacity of prions to transmit to humans. These models can propagate human prions without any apparent transmission barrier and have been used used to confirm the zoonotic ability of BSE. Here we show that a panel of sheep scrapie prions transmit to several tgHu mice models with an efficiency comparable to that of cattle BSE.

 

***The serial transmission of different scrapie isolates in these mice led to the propagation of prions that are phenotypically identical to those causing sporadic CJD (sCJD) in humans.

 

***These results demonstrate that scrapie prions have a zoonotic potential and raise new questions about the possible link between animal and human prions.

 

Subject terms: Biological sciences• Medical research At a glance

 


 

see more here ;

 


 

***The serial transmission of different scrapie isolates in these mice led to the propagation of prions that are phenotypically identical to those causing sporadic CJD (sCJD) in humans.***

 

***These results demonstrate that scrapie prions have a zoonotic potential and raise new questions about the possible link between animal and human prions.***

 

why do we not want to do TSE transmission studies on chimpanzees $

 

5. A positive result from a chimpanzee challenged severly would likely create alarm in some circles even if the result could not be interpreted for man. I have a view that all these agents could be transmitted provided a large enough dose by appropriate routes was given and the animals kept long enough. Until the mechanisms of the species barrier are more clearly understood it might be best to retain that hypothesis.

 

snip...

 

R. BRADLEY

 


 

1: J Infect Dis 1980 Aug;142(2):205-8

 

Oral transmission of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie to nonhuman primates.

 

Gibbs CJ Jr, Amyx HL, Bacote A, Masters CL, Gajdusek DC.

 

Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease of humans and scrapie disease of sheep and goats were transmitted to squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) that were exposed to the infectious agents only by their nonforced consumption of known infectious tissues. The asymptomatic incubation period in the one monkey exposed to the virus of kuru was 36 months; that in the two monkeys exposed to the virus of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was 23 and 27 months, respectively; and that in the two monkeys exposed to the virus of scrapie was 25 and 32 months, respectively. Careful physical examination of the buccal cavities of all of the monkeys failed to reveal signs or oral lesions. One additional monkey similarly exposed to kuru has remained asymptomatic during the 39 months that it has been under observation.

 

snip...

 

The successful transmission of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie by natural feeding to squirrel monkeys that we have reported provides further grounds for concern that scrapie-infected meat may occasionally give rise in humans to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

PMID: 6997404

 


 

Recently the question has again been brought up as to whether scrapie is transmissible to man. This has followed reports that the disease has been transmitted to primates. One particularly lurid speculation (Gajdusek 1977) conjectures that the agents of scrapie, kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and transmissible encephalopathy of mink are varieties of a single "virus". The U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded that it could "no longer justify or permit scrapie-blood line and scrapie-exposed sheep and goats to be processed for human or animal food at slaughter or rendering plants" (ARC 84/77)" The problem is emphasised by the finding that some strains of scrapie produce lesions identical to the once which characterise the human dementias"

 

Whether true or not. the hypothesis that these agents might be transmissible to man raises two considerations. First, the safety of laboratory personnel requires prompt attention. Second, action such as the "scorched meat" policy of USDA makes the solution of the acrapie problem urgent if the sheep industry is not to suffer grievously.

 

snip...

 

76/10.12/4.6

 


 

Nature. 1972 Mar 10;236(5341):73-4.

 

Transmission of scrapie to the cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis).

 

Gibbs CJ Jr, Gajdusek DC.

 

Nature 236, 73 - 74 (10 March 1972); doi:10.1038/236073a0

 

Transmission of Scrapie to the Cynomolgus Monkey (Macaca fascicularis)

 

C. J. GIBBS jun. & D. C. GAJDUSEK

 

National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland

 

SCRAPIE has been transmitted to the cynomolgus, or crab-eating, monkey (Macaca fascicularis) with an incubation period of more than 5 yr from the time of intracerebral inoculation of scrapie-infected mouse brain. The animal developed a chronic central nervous system degeneration, with ataxia, tremor and myoclonus with associated severe scrapie-like pathology of intensive astroglial hypertrophy and proliferation, neuronal vacuolation and status spongiosus of grey matter. The strain of scrapie virus used was the eighth passage in Swiss mice (NIH) of a Compton strain of scrapie obtained as ninth intracerebral passage of the agent in goat brain, from Dr R. L. Chandler (ARC, Compton, Berkshire).

 


 


 

Saturday, July 6, 2013

 

*** Small Ruminant Nor98 Prions Share Biochemical Features with Human Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker Disease and Variably Protease-Sensitive Prionopathy

 

Research Article

 


 

Monday, December 14, 2009

 

Similarities between Forms of Sheep Scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Are Encoded by Distinct Prion Types

 

(hmmm, this is getting interesting now...TSS)

 

Sporadic CJD type 1 and atypical/ Nor98 scrapie are characterized by fine (reticular) deposits,

 

see also ;

 

All of the Heidenhain variants were of the methionine/ methionine type 1 molecular subtype.

 


 

see full text ;

 

Monday, December 14, 2009

 

Similarities between Forms of Sheep Scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Are Encoded by Distinct Prion Types

 


 

*** OIE GROUP RECOMMENDS THAT SCRAPE PRION DISEASE BE DELISTED, WISHES TO CONTINUE SPREADING IT AROUND THE GLOBE

 


 

Monday, November 30, 2009

 

*** USDA AND OIE COLLABORATE TO EXCLUDE ATYPICAL SCRAPIE NOR-98 ANIMAL HEALTH CODE, DOES NOT SURPRISE ME $

 


 

Confucius confused again, and Ponders, what about those Libyan Jews and sheep scrapie and codon 200 of the prion protein gene of the CJD Victims therefrom?

 

Could it be not that the codon 200 of the prion protein gene made these poor victims of CJD just more susceptible to the sheep scrapie agent?

 

Pondering Confucius...

 

European Journal of Epidemiology

 

September 1991, Volume 7, Issue 5, pp 490-493

 

First online:

 

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease among libyan jews A. D. Korczyn

 

Abstract

 

The focus of CJD among Jews of Libyan origin has been recognized for two decades, but the reasons underlying it were unknown. Prevailing views suggested transmission from sheep infected with scrapie. However, recent data show that in fact CJD in this ethnic group is a genetically determined disease due to a point mutation on the codon 200 of the prion protein gene. The clinical characteristics of CJD in this group, and particularly the less common periodic activity in the EEG, are reviewed. New findings include peripheral neuropathy of the demyelinating type in two cases, presumably due to involvement of Schwann cells. The pathophysiology of the disease includes, presumably, a focal post-translational modification of the prion protein, (predisposed by the mutation). Later, the disease progresses through cell-to-cell transmission.

 

Key words Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseases – Prion disease – Jews – Libya – Genetics – Pathophysiology

 


 

1: Cent Eur J Public Health 2003 Mar;11(1):19-22

 

Analysis of unusual accumulation of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease cases in Orava and Liptov regions (northern Slovak focus) 1983-2000.

 

Mad'ar R, Maslenova D, Ranostajova K, Straka S, Baska T.

 

Institute of Epidemiology, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Sklabinska 26, Martin, 037 53 Slovakia. MADAR@jfmed.uniba.sk

 

While familial cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are extremely rare all over the world, 3 familial clusters were observed between 1983-2000 in a relatively small area situated in the North of Slovakia. Prevalence of CJD in this area exceeded the overall prevalence in Slovakia more than 8 times. The majority of CJD patients admitted consuming sheep brain. Most patients lived in small secluded villages with rather common familial intermarriage. CJD affected both sexes equally. All patients were prior to the disease mentally normal individuals. Shortly after the onset of CJD their mental status deteriorated remarkably with an average survival rate of 3.6 months.

 

PMID: 12690798

 


 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

1: Eur J Epidemiol 1991 Sep;7(5):520-3

 

"Clusters" of CJD in Slovakia: the first laboratory evidence of scrapie.

 

Mitrova E, Huncaga S, Hocman G, Nyitrayova O, Tatara M.

 

Institute of Preventive and Clinical Medicine, Bratislava.

 

Epidemic-like occurrence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was observed in 1987 in Slovakia (Orava). Search for the cause of CJD focus indicated a coincidence of genetic and environmental risks in clustering patients. Since Spongiform Encephalopathies might be transmitted orally, (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), the possibility of zoonotic source of CJD cases in Orava was also considered. A deficient knowledge about the occurrence of scrapie in Slovakia stimulated an examination of sheep with signs of CNS disorders in two flocks of Valasky breed in Orava. In one flock, neurohistopathological examination revealed in sheep brains lesions characteristic for scrapie. Frozen brain tissue of these animals were used for the detection of scrapie associated fibrils. They were found in 2 animals from the same flock. This is the first laboratory confirmation of scrapie in Czecho-Slovakia. The possible epidemiological and economical implications are emphasized.

 


 

Mutation of the prion protein in Libyan Jews with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease Article Abstract:

 

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a neurodegenerative disease of a class referred to as the spongiform encephalopathies. The disease can be transmitted experimentally and has also been transmitted accidentally. The causative agent in these transmissions is unlike any well characterized infectious agent and is referred to by many as a prion. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease may occur in families, but is usually sporadic. The incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is about one or two cases per million people. However, among Jews from Libya, the incidence is 100 times higher. Many possible explanations have been put forward to account for this unusually high incidence, but none has sustained any scrutiny. One of the more popular notions was that the eating of sheep brains, a popular delicacy in the region, infected people with scrapie, a prion disease of sheep similar to CJD. However, the eating of sheep brain is popular throughout the Mediterranean, and cannot explain the specificity of the increased incidence to Libyan Jews. Mediterranean sheep, if anything, have a lower rate of scrapie than other areas of Europe and North America. A study was undertaken to determine if the increased incidence of CJD among these people might be accounted for by genetic factors. The prion protein genes were analyzed in 11 Libyan Jews with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Investigation of one patient revealed that a mutation had occurred in the 200th codon of the gene, that is, the 200th set of three DNA bases. The net result of this change would be to substitute a lysine for glutamine in the resulting protein. After this mutation was identified, it was confirmed in the other 10 Libyan patients. It is interesting to note that the mutation was not present in a Moroccan Jew with CJD. The results suggest that the increased incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in this population is the result of a gene carried by this group. In eight of the present cases, a family history of CJD could be confirmed. Although not all families were cooperative in providing information of the ancestral heritage, all the families for which such information was available could be traced to Djerba, which is an island off the coast of Tunisia. (Consumer Summary produced by Reliance Medical Information, Inc.)

 

author: Scarlato, Guglielmo, Prusiner, Stanley B., Hsiao, Karen, Meiner, Zeev, Kahana, Esther, Cass, Carin, Kahana, Irit, Avrahami, Dana, Abramsky, Oded, Gabizon, Ruth Publisher: Massachusetts Medical Society Publication Name: The New England Journal of Medicine Subject: Health ISSN: 0028-4793 Year: 1991

 


 

Epidemiology of Scrapie in the United States 1977

 


 


 

 Monday, March 28, 2016

 

National Scrapie Eradication Program February 2016 Monthly Report

 


 

Comment from Terry Singeltary This is a Comment on the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Proposed Rule: Scrapie in Sheep and Goats

 

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Comment View document:Indeed, much science has changed about the Scrapie TSE prion, including more science linking Scrapie to humans. sadly, politics, industry, and trade, have not changed, and those usually trump sound science, as is the case with all Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy TSE Prion disease in livestock producing animals and the OIE. we can look no further at the legal trading of the Scrapie TSE prion both typical and atypical of all strains, and CWD all stains. With as much science of old, and now more new science to back this up, Scrapie of all types i.e. atypical and typical, BSE all strains, and CWD all strains, should be regulated in trade as BSE TSE PRION. In fact, I urge APHIS et al and the OIE, and all trading partners to take heed to the latest science on the TSE prion disease, all of them, and seriously reconsider the blatant disregards for human and animal health, all in the name of trade, with the continued relaxing of TSE Prion trade regulations through the 'NEGLIGIBLE BSE RISK' PROGRAM, which was set up to fail in the first place. If the world does not go back to the 'BSE RISK ASSESSMENTS', enhance, and or change that assessment process to include all TSE prion disease, i.e. 'TSE RISK ASSESSMENT', if we do not do this and if we continue this farce with OIE and the USDA et al, and the 'NEGLIGIBLE BSE RISK' PROGRAM, we will never eradicate the TSE prion aka mad cow type disease, they will continue to mutate and spread among species of human and animal origin, and they will continue to kill. ...

 

please see ;

 

O.05: Transmission of prions to primates after extended silent incubation periods: Implications for BSE and scrapie risk assessment in human populations

 

Emmanuel Comoy, Jacqueline Mikol, Valerie Durand, Sophie Luccantoni, Evelyne Correia, Nathalie Lescoutra, Capucine Dehen, and Jean-Philippe Deslys Atomic Energy Commission; Fontenay-aux-Roses, France

 

Prion diseases (PD) are the unique neurodegenerative proteinopathies reputed to be transmissible under field conditions since decades. The transmission of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) to humans evidenced that an animal PD might be zoonotic under appropriate conditions. Contrarily, in the absence of obvious (epidemiological or experimental) elements supporting a transmission or genetic predispositions, PD, like the other proteinopathies, are reputed to occur spontaneously (atpical animal prion strains, sporadic CJD summing 80% of human prion cases). Non-human primate models provided the first evidences supporting the transmissibiity of human prion strains and the zoonotic potential of BSE. Among them, cynomolgus macaques brought major information for BSE risk assessment for human health (Chen, 2014), according to their phylogenetic proximity to humans and extended lifetime. We used this model to assess the zoonotic potential of other animal PD from bovine, ovine and cervid origins even after very long silent incubation periods.

 

*** We recently observed the direct transmission of a natural classical scrapie isolate to macaque after a 10-year silent incubation period,

 

***with features similar to some reported for human cases of sporadic CJD, albeit requiring fourfold longe incubation than BSE. Scrapie, as recently evoked in humanized mice (Cassard, 2014),

 

***is the third potentially zoonotic PD (with BSE and L-type BSE),

 

***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases. We will present an updated panorama of our different transmission studies and discuss the implications of such extended incubation periods on risk assessment of animal PD for human health.

 

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

 

***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases***

 

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

 


 

***This information will have a scientific impact since it is the first study that demonstrates the transmission of scrapie to a non-human primate with a close genetic relationship to humans. This information is especially useful to regulatory officials and those involved with risk assessment of the potential transmission of animal prion diseases to humans.

 

***This observation strengthens the questioning of the harmlessness of scrapie to humans, at a time when protective measures for human and animal health are being dismantled and reduced as c-BSE is considered controlled and being eradicated. Our results underscore the importance of precautionary and protective measures and the necessity for long-term experimental transmission studies to assess the zoonotic potential of other animal prion strains.

 


 

please see file attachment for full submission and recent science and my deep concerns on the TSE Prion disease... No documents available. AttachmentsView All (1) scrapie-usa-blogspot-com View Attachment:

 


 

Evidence That Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy Results from Feeding Infected Cattle

 

Over the next 8-10 weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME.

 

snip...

 

The rancher was a ''dead stock'' feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle...

 


 

*** PLEASE SEE THIS URGENT UPDATE ON CWD AND FEED ANIMAL PROTEIN ***

 

Sunday, March 20, 2016

 

Docket No. FDA-2003-D-0432 (formerly 03D-0186) Use of Material from Deer and Elk in Animal Feed ***UPDATED MARCH 2016*** Singeltary Submission

 


 


 

Saturday, April 16, 2016

 

APHIS [Docket No. APHIS-2016-0029] Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health; Meeting May 2, 2016, and June 16, 2016 Singeltary Submission

 


 

Comment from Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Return to Docket Folder Summary This is a Comment on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Notice: Risk Assessment of Foodborne Illness Associated With Pathogens From Produce Grown in Fields Amended With Untreated Biological Soil Amendments of Animal Origin; Request for Scientific Data, Information, and Comments

 

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Comment View document:Greetings FDA et al, I kindly would like to make comment submission to ;

 

Docket No. FDA-2016-N-0321 Risk Assessment of Foodborne Illness Associated with Pathogens from Produce Grown in Fields Amended with Untreated Biological Soil Amendments of Animal Origin; Request for Comments, Scientific Data, and Information

 

A Notice by the Food and Drug Administration on 03/04/2016

 

MY comment as follows,

 

There has been proven documented risk for Untreated Biological Soil Amendments of Animal Origin and risk of transmitting Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy TSE Prion disease aka mad cow type disease such as the typical and atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy strains, typical and atypical Scrapie strains, typical and atypical Chronic Wasting Disease CWD strains, and even the Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy TME Prion disease.

 

Science has shown that infected deer harbor and shed high levels of infectious prions in saliva, blood, urine, and feces thereby leading to transmission by direct contact and environmental contamination.

 

Ingestion of prion contaminated leaves and roots produced disease with a 100% attack rate and an incubation period not substantially longer than feeding animals directly with scrapie brain homogenate.

 

Plants can uptake prions from contaminated soil and transport them to different parts of the plant tissue (stem and leaves) [please see data from Soto et al Prion2015 Conference below in Science reference data].

 

Also, Detection of protease-resistant cervid prion protein in water from a CWD-endemic area is very concerning.

 

Science has shown that soil plays a role in the spreading and transmission of the CWD and Scrapie TSE prion agent.

 

For these reason and more (see reference materials) I urge the FDA to stop this practice of Untreated Biological Soil Amendments of Animal Origin, including blood, for use on our produce grown in fields, for the following reasons,

 

please see attachments and updated TSE Prion science on these very important matters here (I do not advertise or make money the science is there for educational use for Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy TSE Prion disease.

 

just made a promise to mom dod 12/14/97 confirmed Heidenhain Variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, hvCJD. ... AttachmentsView All (1) Comment from Terry S Singeltary Sr View Attachment:

 


 


 

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

 

Docket No. FDA-2016-N-0321 Risk Assessment of Foodborne Illness Associated with Pathogens from Produce Grown in Fields Amended with Untreated Biological Soil Amendments of Animal Origin; Request for Comments, Scientific Data, and Information Singeltary Submission

 


 

Saturday, April 16, 2016

 

APHIS [Docket No. APHIS-2016-0029] Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health; Meeting May 2, 2016, and June 16, 2016 Singeltary Submission

 


 

Friday, April 22, 2016

 

Texas Scrapie Confirmed in a Hartley County Sheep where CWD was detected in a Mule Deer

 


 

Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES Title: Scrapie transmits to white-tailed deer by the oral route and has a molecular profile similar to chronic wasting disease Authors

 

item Greenlee, Justin item Moore, S - item Smith, Jodi - item Kunkle, Robert item West Greenlee, M -

 

Submitted to: American College of Veterinary Pathologists Meeting Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: August 12, 2015 Publication Date: N/A Technical Abstract: The purpose of this work was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer (WTD) to the agent of sheep scrapie and to compare the resultant PrPSc to that of the original inoculum and chronic wasting disease (CWD). We inoculated WTD by a natural route of exposure (concurrent oral and intranasal (IN); n=5) with a US scrapie isolate. All scrapie-inoculated deer had evidence of PrPSc accumulation. PrPSc was detected in lymphoid tissues at preclinical time points, and deer necropsied after 28 months post-inoculation had clinical signs, spongiform encephalopathy, and widespread distribution of PrPSc in neural and lymphoid tissues. Western blotting (WB) revealed PrPSc with 2 distinct molecular profiles. WB on cerebral cortex had a profile similar to the original scrapie inoculum, whereas WB of brainstem, cerebellum, or lymph nodes revealed PrPSc with a higher profile resembling CWD. Homogenates with the 2 distinct profiles from WTD with clinical scrapie were further passaged to mice expressing cervid prion protein and intranasally to sheep and WTD. In cervidized mice, the two inocula have distinct incubation times. Sheep inoculated intranasally with WTD derived scrapie developed disease, but only after inoculation with the inoculum that had a scrapie-like profile. The WTD study is ongoing, but deer in both inoculation groups are positive for PrPSc by rectal mucosal biopsy. In summary, this work demonstrates that WTD are susceptible to the agent of scrapie, two distinct molecular profiles of PrPSc are present in the tissues of affected deer, and inoculum of either profile readily passes to deer.

 


 


 

 Thursday, April 07, 2016

 

What is the risk of chronic wasting disease being introduced into Great Britain? An updated Qualitative Risk Assessment March 2016

 

Sheep and cattle may be exposed to CWD via common grazing areas with affected deer but so far, appear to be poorly susceptible to mule deer CWD (Sigurdson, 2008).

 

***In contrast, cattle are highly susceptible to white-tailed deer CWD and mule deer CWD in experimental conditions but no natural CWD infections in cattle have been reported (Sigurdson, 2008; Hamir et al., 2006). It is not known how susceptible humans are to CWD but given that the prion can be present in muscle, it is likely that humans have been exposed to the agent via consumption of venison (Sigurdson, 2008). Initial experimental research, however, suggests that human susceptibility to CWD is low and there may be a robust species barrier for CWD transmission to humans (Sigurdson, 2008). It is apparent, though, that CWD is affecting wild and farmed cervid populations in endemic areas with some deer populations decreasing as a result.

 

snip...

 

For the purpose of the qualitative risk assessment developed here it is necessary to estimate the probability that a 30-ml bottle of lure contains urine from an infected deer. This requires an estimate of the proportion of deer herds in the USA which are infected with CWD together with the within herd prevalence.

 

The distribution map of CWD in US shows it is present mainly in central states (Figure 1). However, Virginia in the east of the country has recorded seven recent cases of CWD (Anon 2015a). Some US manufacturers claim to take steps to prevent urine being taken from infected animals eg by sourcing from farms where the deer are randomly tested for CWD (Anon 2015a). However, if disease is already present and testing is not carried out regularly, captive populations are not necessarily disease free (Strausser 2014). Urine-based deer lures have been known to be collected from domestic white-tailed deer herds and therefore there is a recognised risk. This is reflected by 6 US States which have

 

14

 

banned the use of natural deer urine for lures, as the deer urine may be sourced from CWD-endemic areas in the USA as well as from areas free of CWD. For example, the US State of Virginia is banning the use of urine-based deer lures on July 2015 and Vermont from 2016 due to the risk of spread of CWD. Alaska banned their use in 2012 (Anon 2015a). Pennsylvania Game Commission has banned urine-based deer lures and acknowledged that there is no way to detect their use (Strausser 2014). On the basis of unpublished data (J. Manson, Pers. Comm.) it appears that up to 50% of deer herds can be infected with 80-90% of animals infected within some herds.

 

*** It is therefore assumed that probability that a 30-ml bottle of deer urine lure imported from the USA is sources from an infected deer is medium.

 

SNIP...

 

In the USA, under the Food and Drug Administration’s BSE Feed Regulation (21 CFR 589.2000) most material (exceptions include milk, tallow, and gelatin) from deer and elk is prohibited for use in feed for ruminant animals. With regards to feed for non-ruminant animals, under FDA law, CWD positive deer may not be used for any animal feed or feed ingredients. ***For elk and deer considered at high risk for CWD, the FDA recommends that these animals do not enter the animal feed system. ***However, this recommendation is guidance and not a requirement by law.

 

***Animals considered at high risk for CWD include:

 

***1) animals from areas declared to be endemic for CWD and/or to be CWD eradication zones and

 

***2) deer and elk that at some time during the 60-month period prior to slaughter were in a captive herd that contained a CWD-positive animal.

 

***Therefore, in the USA, materials from cervids other than CWD positive animals may be used in animal feed and feed ingredients for non-ruminants. The amount of animal PAP that is of deer and/or elk origin imported from the USA to GB cannot be determined, however, as it is not specified in TRACES. It may constitute a small percentage of the very low tonnage of non-fish origin processed animal proteins that were imported from US into GB.

 

*** Overall, therefore, it is considered there is a greater than negligible risk that (non-ruminant) animal feed and pet food containing deer and/or elk protein is imported into GB. There is uncertainty associated with this estimate given the lack of data on the amount of deer and/or elk protein possibly being imported in these products.

 

SNIP...

 


 

Summary and MORE HERE ;

 

What is the risk of chronic wasting disease being introduced into Great Britain? An updated Qualitative Risk Assessment March 2016

 


 

Saturday, January 31, 2015

 

European red deer (Cervus elaphus elaphus) are susceptible to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy BSE by Oral Alimentary route

 


 


 

I strenuously once again urge the FDA and its industry constituents, to make it MANDATORY that all ruminant feed be banned to all ruminants, and this should include all cervids as soon as possible for the following reasons...

 

======

 

In the USA, under the Food and Drug Administrations BSE Feed Regulation (21 CFR 589.2000) most material (exceptions include milk, tallow, and gelatin) from deer and elk is prohibited for use in feed for ruminant animals. With regards to feed for non-ruminant animals, under FDA law, CWD positive deer may not be used for any animal feed or feed ingredients. For elk and deer considered at high risk for CWD, the FDA recommends that these animals do not enter the animal feed system.

 

***However, this recommendation is guidance and not a requirement by law.

 

======

 

31 Jan 2015 at 20:14 GMT

 

*** Ruminant feed ban for cervids in the United States? ***

 

31 Jan 2015 at 20:14 GMT

 

see Singeltary comment ;

 


 

Evidence That Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy Results from Feeding Infected Cattle

 

Over the next 8-10 weeks, approximately 40% of all the adult mink on the farm died from TME.

 

snip...

 

The rancher was a ''dead stock'' feeder using mostly (>95%) downer or dead dairy cattle...

 


 

BSE: TIME TO TAKE H.B. PARRY SERIOUSLY

 

If the scrapie agent is generated from ovine DNA and thence causes disease in other species, then perhaps, bearing in mind the possible role of scrapie in CJD of humans (Davinpour et al, 1985), scrapie and not BSE should be the notifiable disease. ...

 


 

Thursday, August 20, 2015 Doctor William J. Hadlow

 

William J. Hadlow Dr. Hadlow (Ohio State ’48), 94, Hamilton, Montana, died June 20, 2015.

 


 

Biological Warfare, or another happenstance of bad luck ???

 

The Alfords believe their son's illness was caused by eating sheep's brains while he was serving in Oman. Medical experts say they don't know the cause. snip... "In June of 2003 they told us he wouldn't see his 25th birthday; then in August they were absolutely certain he wouldn't be here at Christmas.

 

"Here we are at his fourth birthday since he was diagnosed. I'm not ready to say anything about having a fourth Christmas with him, but we're headed in that direction."

 

Alford was assigned to the U.S. Army's 5th Special Forces Group. His illness was chronicled in a front-page story in The Tennessean in November 2003.

 

According to the Creutzfeldt-Jakob Foundation, the incidence of CJD in the United States is one case per 9,000 adults age 55 and older; it occurs much less frequently in people 30 and younger.

 

The disease can be contracted by contamination during surgery or inherited at birth, but 85 percent of cases are of the "sporadic" variety, meaning the cause for the disease is unknown, the CJD Foundation reported. That's the case in Alford's situation.

 

Because he was so well traveled as a Special Forces soldier, his family said he may have eaten contaminated beef in England, where more than 125 persons have contracted the disease after eating beef from cows that were fed products rendered from scrapie-infected sheep. Scrapie is a form of a brain disorder found in sheep.

 

The soldier also told his family that in 2001 he ate a sheep's brain while stationed in Oman. However, while the disease is linked to cattle that have eaten sheep-byproducts, there has been no evidence of direct transfer from sheep to humans, according to the CJD Foundation.

 


 

At the time of infection, it is believed that Jamie contracted it from eating sheep's brain with tribesmen in Oman. This was something that he HAD to do in order to win the respect of the Omani tribesmen. Oman is a key territory in the War on Terror.

 


 


 

Terry S. Singeltary Sr.

 

Friday, April 22, 2016

Texas Scrapie Confirmed in a Hartley County Sheep where CWD was detected in a Mule Deer

April 22, 2016

 

Scrapie Confirmed in a Hartley County Sheep

 

AUSTIN - Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) officials have confirmed scrapie in a Hartley County ewe. The ewe was tested by TAHC after the owner reported signs of weight loss and lack of coordination to their local veterinarian. The premises was quarantined and a flock plan for monitoring is being developed by the TAHC and USDA.

 

"The TAHC is working closely with the flock owner, sharing all of the options for disease eradication," said Dr. David Finch, TAHC Region 1 Director. "We are thankful the producer was proactive in identifying a problem and seeking veterinary help immediately."

 

Texas leads the nation in sheep and goat production. Since 2008, there have been no confirmed cases of scrapie in Texas. The last big spike in Texas scrapie cases was in 2006 when nine infected herds were identified and the last herd was released from restrictions in 2013.

 

According to USDA regulations, Texas must conduct adequate scrapie surveillance by collecting a minimum of 598 sheep samples annually. Since USDA slaughter surveillance started in FY 2003, the percent of cull sheep found positive for scrapieat slaughter (once adjusted for face color) has decreased 90 percent.

 

Scrapie is the oldest known transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, and under natural conditions only sheep and goats are known to be affected by scrapie. It is a fatal disease that affects the central nervous system of sheep and goats. It is not completely understood how scrapie is passed from one animal to the next and apparently healthy sheep infected with scrapie can spread the disease. Sheep and goats are typically infected as young lambs or kids, though adult sheep and goats can become infected.

 

The most effective method of scrapie prevention is to maintain a closed flock. Raising replacement ewes, purchasing genetically resistant rams and ewes,or buying from a certified-free scrapie flock are other options to reduce the risk of scrapie. At this time the resistant genetic markers in goats have not been identified, therefore it is important to maintain your sheep and goat herds separately.

 

The incubation period for Scrapie is typically two to five years. Producers should record individual identification numbers and the seller's premise identification number on purchase and sales records. These records must be maintained for a minimum of five years.

 

Producers should notify the Texas Animal Health Commission (800-550-8242) or the USDA-Austin Office (512-383-2400) if they have an adult sheep or goat with neurologic signs such as incoordination, behavioral changes, or intense itching with wool loss. Producers may order scrapie identification tags by calling 866-873-2824. For more information, please visit our website at:

 


 

###



TEXAS Sheep and Goats

• Most recent scrapie positive animal in Texas was found in April, 2008.

• USDA-APHIS-VS set the national goal for surveillance at 46,000 traceable, mature sheep or goats. Target for Texas is 1,472.

• The Scrapie Program Review is being scheduled for this summer. No problems expected.


 
Prion. 10:S15-S21. 2016 ISSN: 1933-6896 printl 1933-690X online

Taylor & Francis

Prion 2016 Animal Prion Disease Workshop Abstracts

WS-01: Prion diseases in animals and zoonotic potential

Juan Maria Torres a, Olivier Andreoletti b, J uan-Carlos Espinosa a. Vincent Beringue c. Patricia Aguilar a,

Natalia Fernandez-Borges a. and Alba Marin-Moreno a

"Centro de Investigacion en Sanidad Animal ( CISA-INIA ). Valdeolmos, Madrid. Spain; b UMR INRA -ENVT 1225 Interactions Holes Agents Pathogenes. ENVT. Toulouse. France: "UR892. Virologie lmmunologie MolécuIaires, Jouy-en-Josas. France

Dietary exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) contaminated bovine tissues is considered as the origin of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob (vCJD) disease in human. To date, BSE agent is the only recognized zoonotic prion. Despite the variety of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) agents that have been circulating for centuries in farmed ruminants there is no apparent epidemiological link between exposure to ruminant products and the occurrence of other form of TSE in human like sporadic Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (sCJD). However, the zoonotic potential of the diversity of circulating TSE agents has never been systematically assessed. The major issue in experimental assessment of TSEs zoonotic potential lies in the modeling of the ‘species barrier‘, the biological phenomenon that limits TSE agents’ propagation from a species to another. In the last decade, mice genetically engineered to express normal forms of the human prion protein has proved essential in studying human prions pathogenesis and modeling the capacity of TSEs to cross the human species barrier.

To assess the zoonotic potential of prions circulating in farmed ruminants, we study their transmission ability in transgenic mice expressing human PrPC (HuPrP-Tg). Two lines of mice expressing different forms of the human PrPC (129Met or 129Val) are used to determine the role of the Met129Val dimorphism in susceptibility/resistance to the different agents.

These transmission experiments confirm the ability of BSE prions to propagate in 129M- HuPrP-Tg mice and demonstrate that Met129 homozygotes may be susceptible to BSE in sheep or goat to a greater degree than the BSE agent in cattle and that these agents can convey molecular properties and neuropathological indistinguishable from vCJD. However homozygous 129V mice are resistant to all tested BSE derived prions independently of the originating species suggesting a higher transmission barrier for 129V-PrP variant.

Transmission data also revealed that several scrapie prions propagate in HuPrP-Tg mice with efficiency comparable to that of cattle BSE. While the efficiency of transmission at primary passage was low, subsequent passages resulted in a highly virulent prion disease in both Met129 and Val129 mice. Transmission of the different scrapie isolates in these mice leads to the emergence of prion strain phenotypes that showed similar characteristics to those displayed by MM1 or VV2 sCJD prion. These results demonstrate that scrapie prions have a zoonotic potential and raise new questions about the possible link between animal and human prions.


Saturday, April 23, 2016

SCRAPIE WS-01: Prion diseases in animals and zoonotic potential 2016

Prion. 10:S15-S21. 2016 ISSN: 1933-6896 printl 1933-690X online


Texas Scrapie Confirmed in a Hartley County Sheep where CWD was detected in a Mule Deer, was there a link to the two ???

 

National Scrapie Eradication Program

 

February 2016 Monthly Report

 

Fiscal Year 2016

 

Positive Cases and Infected/Source Flocks

 

Positive Scrapie Cases*

 

Twelve positive cases have been reported in FY 2016. Eight of the cases were from a source flock that was designated in October because of an RSSS positive animal reported in September 2015. Location of the cases is shown in Table 1and Figure 1, and distribution by face-color (sheep) and type (goats) is shown in Table 2.

 

The 2 positive goat cases found in FY 2015 increased the number of confirmed cases in goats since FY 2002 to 41 (Figure 2). No goats have tested positive in FY 2016. Infected and Source Flocks

 

As of February 29, 2016, there were four flocks with an open infected or source status

 

(Figure 3). One infected and three source flocks have been designated in FY 2016 (Figure 4); one flock completed a clean-up plan and was released in December 2015 (Figure 5). New infected and source statuses from FY 1997 to FY 2016 are depicted in Chart 2.

 

Introduction –Positive Cases & Infected/Source Flocks

 

*Samples collected between October 1, 2015 and February 29, 2016 and confirmed by March 15, 2016.

 

Surveillance

 

Regulatory Scrapie Slaughter Surveillance (RSSS)

 

RSSS started April 1, 2003. It is a targeted slaughter surveillance program which is designed to identify infected flocks. Samples have been collected from 496,370 animals since April 1, 2003. There have been 479 NVSL confirmed positive animals* (471 classical cases and 8 Nor98-like cases) since the beginning of RSSS. As of February 29, 2016, 13,768 samples have been collected in FY 2016, 10,849 from sheep and 2,919 from goats.

 

As of February 29, 2016, one black-faced sheep* tested positive for scrapie in FY 2016. The weighted percentage of samples that have tested positive for each face color** from FY 2003 through FY 2016 is depicted in Chart 3a. In November 2013, administrative units within APHIS Veterinary Services reorganized from 2 Regions to 6 Districts (Figure 6). The distribution of sheep and goat populations by District is depicted in Chart 4a. The number of animals collected for FY 2016 by District where collected is shown in Chart 4b. A monthly comparison of RSSS collections by fiscal year is displayed in Chart 5. Chart 6is a retrospective 6-month rolling average of the percent positive, black-faced sheep sampled at RSSS collection sites.

 

*RSSS positives are reported based on collection date and may have been confirmed after February 29, 2016. ** White, black and mottled face color sheep are weighted based on population. White faced sheep have the highest weight, so when the uncommon white face positive sheep is found it will cause this statistic to increase.

 


 

O.05: Transmission of prions to primates after extended silent incubation periods: Implications for BSE and scrapie risk assessment in human populations

 

Emmanuel Comoy, Jacqueline Mikol, Valerie Durand, Sophie Luccantoni, Evelyne Correia, Nathalie Lescoutra, Capucine Dehen, and Jean-Philippe Deslys Atomic Energy Commission; Fontenay-aux-Roses, France

 

Prion diseases (PD) are the unique neurodegenerative proteinopathies reputed to be transmissible under field conditions since decades. The transmission of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) to humans evidenced that an animal PD might be zoonotic under appropriate conditions. Contrarily, in the absence of obvious (epidemiological or experimental) elements supporting a transmission or genetic predispositions, PD, like the other proteinopathies, are reputed to occur spontaneously (atpical animal prion strains, sporadic CJD summing 80% of human prion cases). Non-human primate models provided the first evidences supporting the transmissibiity of human prion strains and the zoonotic potential of BSE. Among them, cynomolgus macaques brought major information for BSE risk assessment for human health (Chen, 2014), according to their phylogenetic proximity to humans and extended lifetime. We used this model to assess the zoonotic potential of other animal PD from bovine, ovine and cervid origins even after very long silent incubation periods.

 

*** We recently observed the direct transmission of a natural classical scrapie isolate to macaque after a 10-year silent incubation period,

 

***with features similar to some reported for human cases of sporadic CJD, albeit requiring fourfold long incubation than BSE. Scrapie, as recently evoked in humanized mice (Cassard, 2014),

 

***is the third potentially zoonotic PD (with BSE and L-type BSE),

 

***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases. We will present an updated panorama of our different transmission studies and discuss the implications of such extended incubation periods on risk assessment of animal PD for human health.

 

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

 

***thus questioning the origin of human sporadic cases***

 

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***our findings suggest that possible transmission risk of H-type BSE to sheep and human. Bioassay will be required to determine whether the PMCA products are infectious to these animals.

 

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Saturday, February 6, 2016

 

*** Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health; Meeting [Docket No. APHIS-2016-0007] Singeltary Submission ***

 


 

Sunday, March 20, 2016

 

Docket No. FDA-2003-D-0432 (formerly 03D-0186) Use of Material from Deer and Elk in Animal Feed Singeltary Submission

 


 

Monday, March 28, 2016

 

National Scrapie Eradication Program February 2016 Monthly Report

 


 

 Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES

 

Title: Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent incubation period

 

Authors

 

item Comoy, Emmanuel - item Mikol, Jacqueline - item Luccantoni-Freire, Sophie - item Correia, Evelyne - item Lescoutra-Etchegaray, Nathalie - item Durand, Valérie - item Dehen, Capucine - item Andreoletti, Olivier - item Casalone, Cristina - item Richt, Juergen item Greenlee, Justin item Baron, Thierry - item Benestad, Sylvie - item Hills, Bob - item Brown, Paul - item Deslys, Jean-Philippe -

 

Submitted to: Scientific Reports Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal Publication Acceptance Date: May 28, 2015 Publication Date: June 30, 2015 Citation: Comoy, E.E., Mikol, J., Luccantoni-Freire, S., Correia, E., Lescoutra-Etchegaray, N., Durand, V., Dehen, C., Andreoletti, O., Casalone, C., Richt, J.A., Greenlee, J.J., Baron, T., Benestad, S., Brown, P., Deslys, J. 2015. Transmission of scrapie prions to primate after an extended silent incubation period. Scientific Reports. 5:11573.

 

Interpretive Summary: The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (also called prion diseases) are fatal neurodegenerative diseases that affect animals and humans. The agent of prion diseases is a misfolded form of the prion protein that is resistant to breakdown by the host cells. Since all mammals express prion protein on the surface of various cells such as neurons, all mammals are, in theory, capable of replicating prion diseases. One example of a prion disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE; also called mad cow disease), has been shown to infect cattle, sheep, exotic undulates, cats, non-human primates, and humans when the new host is exposed to feeds or foods contaminated with the disease agent. The purpose of this study was to test whether non-human primates (cynomologous macaque) are susceptible to the agent of sheep scrapie. After an incubation period of approximately 10 years a macaque developed progressive clinical signs suggestive of neurologic disease. Upon postmortem examination and microscopic examination of tissues, there was a widespread distribution of lesions consistent with a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. This information will have a scientific impact since it is the first study that demonstrates the transmission of scrapie to a non-human primate with a close genetic relationship to humans. This information is especially useful to regulatory officials and those involved with risk assessment of the potential transmission of animal prion diseases to humans. Technical Abstract: Classical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (c-BSE) is an animal prion disease that also causes variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. Over the past decades, c-BSE's zoonotic potential has been the driving force in establishing extensive protective measures for animal and human health.

 

*** In complement to the recent demonstration that humanized mice are susceptible to scrapie, we report here the first observation of direct transmission of a natural classical scrapie isolate to a macaque after a 10-year incubation period. Neuropathologic examination revealed all of the features of a prion disease: spongiform change, neuronal loss, and accumulation of PrPres throughout the CNS.

 

*** This observation strengthens the questioning of the harmlessness of scrapie to humans, at a time when protective measures for human and animal health are being dismantled and reduced as c-BSE is considered controlled and being eradicated.

 

*** Our results underscore the importance of precautionary and protective measures and the necessity for long-term experimental transmission studies to assess the zoonotic potential of other animal prion strains.

 


 

why do we not want to do TSE transmission studies on chimpanzees $

 

5. A positive result from a chimpanzee challenged severly would likely create alarm in some circles even if the result could not be interpreted for man. I have a view that all these agents could be transmitted provided a large enough dose by appropriate routes was given and the animals kept long enough. Until the mechanisms of the species barrier are more clearly understood it might be best to retain that hypothesis.

 

snip...

 

R. BRADLEY

 


 

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

 

*** Evidence for zoonotic potential of ovine scrapie prions

 

Hervé Cassard,1, n1 Juan-Maria Torres,2, n1 Caroline Lacroux,1, Jean-Yves Douet,1, Sylvie L. Benestad,3, Frédéric Lantier,4, Séverine Lugan,1, Isabelle Lantier,4, Pierrette Costes,1, Naima Aron,1, Fabienne Reine,5, Laetitia Herzog,5, Juan-Carlos Espinosa,2, Vincent Beringue5, & Olivier Andréoletti1, Affiliations Contributions Corresponding author Journal name: Nature Communications Volume: 5, Article number: 5821 DOI: doi:10.1038/ncomms6821 Received 07 August 2014 Accepted 10 November 2014 Published 16 December 2014 Article tools Citation Reprints Rights & permissions Article metrics

 

Abstract

 

Although Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) is the cause of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans, the zoonotic potential of scrapie prions remains unknown. Mice genetically engineered to overexpress the human ​prion protein (tgHu) have emerged as highly relevant models for gauging the capacity of prions to transmit to humans. These models can propagate human prions without any apparent transmission barrier and have been used used to confirm the zoonotic ability of BSE. Here we show that a panel of sheep scrapie prions transmit to several tgHu mice models with an efficiency comparable to that of cattle BSE. ***The serial transmission of different scrapie isolates in these mice led to the propagation of prions that are phenotypically identical to those causing sporadic CJD (sCJD) in humans. ***These results demonstrate that scrapie prions have a zoonotic potential and raise new questions about the possible link between animal and human prions.

 

Subject terms: Biological sciences• Medical research At a glance

 


 

see more here ;

 


 

***The serial transmission of different scrapie isolates in these mice led to the propagation of prions that are phenotypically identical to those causing sporadic CJD (sCJD) in humans.***

 

***These results demonstrate that scrapie prions have a zoonotic potential and raise new questions about the possible link between animal and human prions.***

 

why do we not want to do TSE transmission studies on chimpanzees $

 

5. A positive result from a chimpanzee challenged severly would likely create alarm in some circles even if the result could not be interpreted for man. I have a view that all these agents could be transmitted provided a large enough dose by appropriate routes was given and the animals kept long enough. Until the mechanisms of the species barrier are more clearly understood it might be best to retain that hypothesis.

 

snip...

 

R. BRADLEY

 


 

1: J Infect Dis 1980 Aug;142(2):205-8

 

Oral transmission of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie to nonhuman primates.

 

Gibbs CJ Jr, Amyx HL, Bacote A, Masters CL, Gajdusek DC.

 

Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease of humans and scrapie disease of sheep and goats were transmitted to squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) that were exposed to the infectious agents only by their nonforced consumption of known infectious tissues. The asymptomatic incubation period in the one monkey exposed to the virus of kuru was 36 months; that in the two monkeys exposed to the virus of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was 23 and 27 months, respectively; and that in the two monkeys exposed to the virus of scrapie was 25 and 32 months, respectively. Careful physical examination of the buccal cavities of all of the monkeys failed to reveal signs or oral lesions. One additional monkey similarly exposed to kuru has remained asymptomatic during the 39 months that it has been under observation.

 

snip...

 

The successful transmission of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie by natural feeding to squirrel monkeys that we have reported provides further grounds for concern that scrapie-infected meat may occasionally give rise in humans to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

PMID: 6997404

 


 

Recently the question has again been brought up as to whether scrapie is transmissible to man. This has followed reports that the disease has been transmitted to primates. One particularly lurid speculation (Gajdusek 1977) conjectures that the agents of scrapie, kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and transmissible encephalopathy of mink are varieties of a single "virus". The U.S. Department of Agriculture concluded that it could "no longer justify or permit scrapie-blood line and scrapie-exposed sheep and goats to be processed for human or animal food at slaughter or rendering plants" (ARC 84/77)" The problem is emphasised by the finding that some strains of scrapie produce lesions identical to the once which characterise the human dementias"

 

Whether true or not. the hypothesis that these agents might be transmissible to man raises two considerations. First, the safety of laboratory personnel requires prompt attention. Second, action such as the "scorched meat" policy of USDA makes the solution of the acrapie problem urgent if the sheep industry is not to suffer grievously.

 

snip...

 

76/10.12/4.6

 


 

Texas Scrapie Confirmed in a Hartley County Sheep where CWD was detected in a Mule Deer, was there a link to the two ???

 

Research Project: TRANSMISSION, DIFFERENTIATION, AND PATHOBIOLOGY OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHIES

 

Title: Scrapie transmits to white-tailed deer by the oral route and has a molecular profile similar to chronic wasting disease

 

Authors

 

item Greenlee, Justin item Moore, S - item Smith, Jodi - item Kunkle, Robert item West Greenlee, M -

 

Submitted to: American College of Veterinary Pathologists Meeting Publication Type: Abstract Only Publication Acceptance Date: August 12, 2015 Publication Date: N/A Technical Abstract: The purpose of this work was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer (WTD) to the agent of sheep scrapie and to compare the resultant PrPSc to that of the original inoculum and chronic wasting disease (CWD). We inoculated WTD by a natural route of exposure (concurrent oral and intranasal (IN); n=5) with a US scrapie isolate. All scrapie-inoculated deer had evidence of PrPSc accumulation. PrPSc was detected in lymphoid tissues at preclinical time points, and deer necropsied after 28 months post-inoculation had clinical signs, spongiform encephalopathy, and widespread distribution of PrPSc in neural and lymphoid tissues. Western blotting (WB) revealed PrPSc with 2 distinct molecular profiles. WB on cerebral cortex had a profile similar to the original scrapie inoculum, whereas WB of brainstem, cerebellum, or lymph nodes revealed PrPSc with a higher profile resembling CWD. Homogenates with the 2 distinct profiles from WTD with clinical scrapie were further passaged to mice expressing cervid prion protein and intranasally to sheep and WTD. In cervidized mice, the two inocula have distinct incubation times. Sheep inoculated intranasally with WTD derived scrapie developed disease, but only after inoculation with the inoculum that had a scrapie-like profile. The WTD study is ongoing, but deer in both inoculation groups are positive for PrPSc by rectal mucosal biopsy. In summary, this work demonstrates that WTD are susceptible to the agent of scrapie, two distinct molecular profiles of PrPSc are present in the tissues of affected deer, and inoculum of either profile readily passes to deer.

 


 


 

White-tailed Deer are Susceptible to Scrapie by Natural Route of Infection

 

Jodi D. Smith, Justin J. Greenlee, and Robert A. Kunkle; Virus and Prion Research Unit, National Animal Disease Center, USDA-ARS

 

Interspecies transmission studies afford the opportunity to better understand the potential host range and origins of prion diseases. Previous experiments demonstrated that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep-derived scrapie by intracranial inoculation. The purpose of this study was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer to scrapie after a natural route of exposure. Deer (n=5) were inoculated by concurrent oral (30 ml) and intranasal (1 ml) instillation of a 10% (wt/vol) brain homogenate derived from a sheep clinically affected with scrapie. Non-inoculated deer were maintained as negative controls. All deer were observed daily for clinical signs. Deer were euthanized and necropsied when neurologic disease was evident, and tissues were examined for abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot (WB). One animal was euthanized 15 months post-inoculation (MPI) due to an injury. At that time, examination of obex and lymphoid tissues by IHC was positive, but WB of obex and colliculus were negative. Remaining deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 MPI. Tissues from these deer were positive for scrapie by IHC and WB. Tissues with PrPSc immunoreactivity included brain, tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph nodes, hemal node, Peyer’s patches, and spleen. This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by potential natural routes of inoculation. In-depth analysis of tissues will be done to determine similarities between scrapie in deer after intracranial and oral/intranasal inoculation and chronic wasting disease resulting from similar routes of inoculation.

 

see full text ;

 


 

PO-039: A comparison of scrapie and chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer

 

Justin Greenlee, Jodi Smith, Eric Nicholson US Dept. Agriculture; Agricultural Research Service, National Animal Disease Center; Ames, IA USA

 


 

White-tailed deer are susceptible to the agent of sheep scrapie by intracerebral inoculation

 

snip...

 

It is unlikely that CWD will be eradicated from free-ranging cervids, and the disease is likely to continue to spread geographically [10]. However, the potential that white-tailed deer may be susceptible to sheep scrapie by a natural route presents an additional confounding factor to halting the spread of CWD. This leads to the additional speculations that

 

1) infected deer could serve as a reservoir to infect sheep with scrapie offering challenges to scrapie eradication efforts and

 

2) CWD spread need not remain geographically confined to current endemic areas, but could occur anywhere that sheep with scrapie and susceptible cervids cohabitate.

 

This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by intracerebral inoculation with a high attack rate and that the disease that results has similarities to CWD. These experiments will be repeated with a more natural route of inoculation to determine the likelihood of the potential transmission of sheep scrapie to white-tailed deer. If scrapie were to occur in white-tailed deer, results of this study indicate that it would be detected as a TSE, but may be difficult to differentiate from CWD without in-depth biochemical analysis.

 


 


 

2012

 

PO-039: A comparison of scrapie and chronic wasting disease in white-tailed deer

 

Justin Greenlee, Jodi Smith, Eric Nicholson US Dept. Agriculture; Agricultural Research Service, National Animal Disease Center; Ames, IA USA

 

snip...

 

The results of this study suggest that there are many similarities in the manifestation of CWD and scrapie in WTD after IC inoculation including early and widespread presence of PrPSc in lymphoid tissues, clinical signs of depression and weight loss progressing to wasting, and an incubation time of 21-23 months. Moreover, western blots (WB) done on brain material from the obex region have a molecular profile similar to CWD and distinct from tissues of the cerebrum or the scrapie inoculum. However, results of microscopic and IHC examination indicate that there are differences between the lesions expected in CWD and those that occur in deer with scrapie: amyloid plaques were not noted in any sections of brain examined from these deer and the pattern of immunoreactivity by IHC was diffuse rather than plaque-like.

 

*** After a natural route of exposure, 100% of WTD were susceptible to scrapie.

 

Deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 months PI. Tissues from these deer were positive for PrPSc by IHC and WB. Similar to IC inoculated deer, samples from these deer exhibited two different molecular profiles: samples from obex resembled CWD whereas those from cerebrum were similar to the original scrapie inoculum. On further examination by WB using a panel of antibodies, the tissues from deer with scrapie exhibit properties differing from tissues either from sheep with scrapie or WTD with CWD. Samples from WTD with CWD or sheep with scrapie are strongly immunoreactive when probed with mAb P4, however, samples from WTD with scrapie are only weakly immunoreactive. In contrast, when probed with mAb’s 6H4 or SAF 84, samples from sheep with scrapie and WTD with CWD are weakly immunoreactive and samples from WTD with scrapie are strongly positive. This work demonstrates that WTD are highly susceptible to sheep scrapie, but on first passage, scrapie in WTD is differentiable from CWD.

 


 

2011

 

*** After a natural route of exposure, 100% of white-tailed deer were susceptible to scrapie.

 


 

White-tailed Deer are Susceptible to Scrapie by Natural Route of Infection

 

Jodi D. Smith, Justin J. Greenlee, and Robert A. Kunkle; Virus and Prion Research Unit, National Animal Disease Center, USDA-ARS

 

Interspecies transmission studies afford the opportunity to better understand the potential host range and origins of prion diseases. Previous experiments demonstrated that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep-derived scrapie by intracranial inoculation. The purpose of this study was to determine susceptibility of white-tailed deer to scrapie after a natural route of exposure. Deer (n=5) were inoculated by concurrent oral (30 ml) and intranasal (1 ml) instillation of a 10% (wt/vol) brain homogenate derived from a sheep clinically affected with scrapie. Non-inoculated deer were maintained as negative controls. All deer were observed daily for clinical signs. Deer were euthanized and necropsied when neurologic disease was evident, and tissues were examined for abnormal prion protein (PrPSc) by immunohistochemistry (IHC) and western blot (WB). One animal was euthanized 15 months post-inoculation (MPI) due to an injury. At that time, examination of obex and lymphoid tissues by IHC was positive, but WB of obex and colliculus were negative. Remaining deer developed clinical signs of wasting and mental depression and were necropsied from 28 to 33 MPI. Tissues from these deer were positive for scrapie by IHC and WB. Tissues with PrPSc immunoreactivity included brain, tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph nodes, hemal node, Peyer’s patches, and spleen. This work demonstrates for the first time that white-tailed deer are susceptible to sheep scrapie by potential natural routes of inoculation. In-depth analysis of tissues will be done to determine similarities between scrapie in deer after intracranial and oral/intranasal inoculation and chronic wasting disease resulting from similar routes of inoculation.

 

see full text ;

 


 

Monday, November 3, 2014

 

Persistence of ovine scrapie infectivity in a farm environment following cleaning and decontamination

 


 

PL1

 

Using in vitro prion replication for high sensitive detection of prions and prionlike proteins and for understanding mechanisms of transmission.

 

Claudio Soto

 

Mitchell Center for Alzheimer's diseases and related Brain disorders, Department of Neurology, University of Texas Medical School at Houston.

 

Prion and prion-like proteins are misfolded protein aggregates with the ability to selfpropagate to spread disease between cells, organs and in some cases across individuals. I n T r a n s m i s s i b l e s p o n g i f o r m encephalopathies (TSEs), prions are mostly composed by a misfolded form of the prion protein (PrPSc), which propagates by transmitting its misfolding to the normal prion protein (PrPC). The availability of a procedure to replicate prions in the laboratory may be important to study the mechanism of prion and prion-like spreading and to develop high sensitive detection of small quantities of misfolded proteins in biological fluids, tissues and environmental samples. Protein Misfolding Cyclic Amplification (PMCA) is a simple, fast and efficient methodology to mimic prion replication in the test tube. PMCA is a platform technology that may enable amplification of any prion-like misfolded protein aggregating through a seeding/nucleation process. In TSEs, PMCA is able to detect the equivalent of one single molecule of infectious PrPSc and propagate prions that maintain high infectivity, strain properties and species specificity. Using PMCA we have been able to detect PrPSc in blood and urine of experimentally infected animals and humans affected by vCJD with high sensitivity and specificity. Recently, we have expanded the principles of PMCA to amplify amyloid-beta (Aβ) and alphasynuclein (α-syn) aggregates implicated in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, respectively. Experiments are ongoing to study the utility of this technology to detect Aβ and α-syn aggregates in samples of CSF and blood from patients affected by these diseases.

 

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

 

***Recently, we have been using PMCA to study the role of environmental prion contamination on the horizontal spreading of TSEs. These experiments have focused on the study of the interaction of prions with plants and environmentally relevant surfaces. Our results show that plants (both leaves and roots) bind tightly to prions present in brain extracts and excreta (urine and feces) and retain even small quantities of PrPSc for long periods of time. Strikingly, ingestion of prioncontaminated leaves and roots produced disease with a 100% attack rate and an incubation period not substantially longer than feeding animals directly with scrapie brain homogenate. Furthermore, plants can uptake prions from contaminated soil and transport them to different parts of the plant tissue (stem and leaves). Similarly, prions bind tightly to a variety of environmentally relevant surfaces, including stones, wood, metals, plastic, glass, cement, etc. Prion contaminated surfaces efficiently transmit prion disease when these materials were directly injected into the brain of animals and strikingly when the contaminated surfaces were just placed in the animal cage. These findings demonstrate that environmental materials can efficiently bind infectious prions and act as carriers of infectivity, suggesting that they may play an important role in the horizontal transmission of the disease.

 

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

 

Since its invention 13 years ago, PMCA has helped to answer fundamental questions of prion propagation and has broad applications in research areas including the food industry, blood bank safety and human and veterinary disease diagnosis.

 


 

see ;

 

Potential role of soil properties in the spread of CWD in western Canada

 

Alsu Kuznetsova, Debbie McKenzie, Pamela Banser, Tariq Siddique & Judd M. Aiken

 


 

Estimating Prion Adsorption Capacity of Soil by BioAssay of Subtracted Infectivity from Complex Solutions (BASICS)

 

Estimating Prion Adsorption Capacity of Soil by BioAssay of Subtracted Infectivity from Complex Solutions (BASICS) A. Christy Wyckoff, Krista L. Lockwood, Crystal Meyerett-Reid, Brady A. Michel, Heather Bender, Kurt C. VerCauteren, Mark D. Zabel PLOS x Published: March 4, 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0058630

 


 

Behavior of Prions in the Environment: Implications for Prion Biology

 

Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt1*, Jason C. Bartz2*

 


 

Prion Amplification and Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling Refine Detection of Prion Infection A. Christy Wyckoff1, 2 n1 , Nathan Galloway3 n1 , Crystal Meyerett-Reid1 , Jenny Powers4 , Terry Spraker1 , Ryan J. Monello4 , Bruce Pulford1 , Margaret Wild4 , Michael Antolin3 , Kurt VerCauteren2 […] & Mark Zabel1 - Show fewer authors Scientific Reports 5, Article number: 8358 (2015) doi:10.1038/srep08358 Download Citation

 

Molecular ecology Proteins Statistics Received: 27 June 2014

 


 

CELL REPORTS

 

Report

 

Grass Plants Bind, Retain, Uptake, and Transport Infectious Prions

 


 

PRION UPDATE VIA VEGETABLE PLANTS FROM THE SOIL

 

56. Members considered that there is no evidence that crops grown on the land which received composted excreta from BSE-challenged animals pose a TSE risk to humans or animals. One member suggested that, as some of these animals are orally challenged with high doses of BSE-infected materials, and the distribution of infectivity in the digestive system is not completely understood, it might be premature to conclude that there is no infective agent in the manure.

 

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. Dr Matthews explained that most of the manure from animals challenged with high doses of BSE had already been composted and used for coppicing. Members agreed that the risks from disposal of residual manure from experimental animals would be much less than historic risks of on farm contamination from naturally infected animals at the height of the BSE epidemic. ...SNIP...END

 


 

SRM are certain cattle tissues capable of transmitting BSE. There is no human health risk assessment to indicate the absence of human health concerns associated with use of composted SRM domestically. To date, scientific evidence has not been able to demonstrate that composting destroys prions. Although domestic use would pose a negligible risk to livestock, there is a potential risk to humans via direct ingestion of the compost or of compost particles adhered to skin or plant material (e.g. carrots). Another potential route of exposure is by ingestion of prions that have been taken up by plants. It has been proven that bacteria are readily taken up by some plants (e.g. E. coli in lettuce) thus the uptake of prions by plants cannot be precluded or dismissed at this time. As a science-based regulator, the CFIA cannot change the policy on this issue without a risk assessment demonstrating that the use of composted SRM poses an acceptable risk to humans.

 


 

The BSE Inquiry / Statement No 19B (supplementary) Dr Alan Colchester Issued 06/08/1999 (not scheduled to give oral evidence) SECOND STATEMENT TO THE BSE INQUIRY Dr A Colchester BA BM BCh PhD FRCP Reader in Neurosciences & Computing, University of Kent at Canterbury; Consultant Neurologist, Guy’s Hospital London and William Harvey Hospital Ashford April 1999

 

snip...

 

88. Natural decay: Infectivity persists for a long time in the environment. A study by Palsson in 1979 showed how scrapie was contracted by healthy sheep, after they had grazed on land which had previously been grazed by scrapie-infected sheep, even though the land had lain fallow for three years before the healthy sheep were introduced. Brown also quoted an early experiment of his own (1991), where he had buried scrapie-infected hamster brain and found that he could still detect substantial infectivity three years later near where the material had been placed. 89. Potential environmental routes of infection: Brown discusses the various possible scenarios, including surface or subsurface deposits of TSE-contaminated material, which would lead to a build-up of long-lasting infectivity. Birds feeding on animal remains (such as gulls visiting landfill sites) could disperse infectivity. Other animals could become vectors if they later grazed on contaminated land. "A further question concerns the risk of contamination of the surrounding water table or even surface water channels, by effluents and discarded solid wastes from treatment plants. A reasonable conclusion is that there is a potential for human infection to result from environmental contamination by BSE-infected tissue residues. The potential cannot be quantified because of the huge numbers of uncertainties and assumptions that attend each stage of the disposal process". These comments, from a long established authority on TSEs, closely echo my own statements which were based on a recent examination of all the evidence. 90. Susceptibility: It is likely that transmissibility of the disease to humans in vivo is probably low, because sheep that die from scrapie and cattle that die from BSE are probably a small fraction of the exposed population. However, no definitive data are available.

 

91. Recommendations for disposal procedures: Brown recommends that material which is actually or potentially contaminated by BSE should be: 1) exposed to caustic soda; 2) thoroughly incinerated under carefully inspected conditions; and 3) that any residue should be buried in landfill, to a depth which would minimise any subsequent animal or human exposure, in areas that would not intersect with any potable water-table source.

 

92. This review and recommendations from Brown have particular importance. Brown is one of the world's foremost authorities on TSEs and is a senior researcher in the US National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is notable that such a respected authority is forthright in acknowledging the existence of potential risks, and in identifying the appropriate measures necessary to safeguard public health. Paper by SM Cousens, L Linsell, PG Smith, Dr M Chandrakumar, JW Wilesmith, RSG Knight, M Zeidler, G Stewart, RG Will, "Geographical distribution of variant CJD in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland)". Lancet 353:18-21, 2 nd January 1999 93. The above paper {Appendix 41 (02/01/99)} (J/L/353/18) examined the possibility that patients with vCJD (variant CJD) might live closer to rendering factories than would be expected by chance. All 26 cases of vCJD in the UK with onset up to 31 st August 1998 were studied. The incubation period of vCJD is not known but by analogy with other human TSEs could lie within the range 5-25 years. If vCJD had arisen by exposure to rendering products, such exposure might plausibly have occurred 8-10 years before the onset of symptoms. The authors were able to obtain the addresses of all rendering plants in the UK which were in production in 1988. For each case of vCJD, the distance from the place of residence on 1st January 1998 to the nearest rendering plant was calculated

 

snip...

 


 

Friday, February 08, 2013

 

*** Behavior of Prions in the Environment: Implications for Prion Biology

 


 


 

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

 

Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission

 

Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission

 

Timm Konold1*, Stephen A. C. Hawkins2, Lisa C. Thurston3, Ben C. Maddison4, Kevin C. Gough5, Anthony Duarte1 and Hugh A. Simmons1

 

1 Animal Sciences Unit, Animal and Plant Health Agency Weybridge, Addlestone, UK, 2 Pathology Department, Animal and Plant Health Agency Weybridge, Addlestone, UK, 3 Surveillance and Laboratory Services, Animal and Plant Health Agency Penrith, Penrith, UK, 4 ADAS UK, School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, UK, 5 School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, Sutton Bonington, UK

 

Classical scrapie is an environmentally transmissible prion disease of sheep and goats. Prions can persist and remain potentially infectious in the environment for many years and thus pose a risk of infecting animals after re-stocking. In vitro studies using serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) have suggested that objects on a scrapie affected sheep farm could contribute to disease transmission. This in vivo study aimed to determine the role of field furniture (water troughs, feeding troughs, fencing, and other objects that sheep may rub against) used by a scrapie-infected sheep flock as a vector for disease transmission to scrapie-free lambs with the prion protein genotype VRQ/VRQ, which is associated with high susceptibility to classical scrapie. When the field furniture was placed in clean accommodation, sheep became infected when exposed to either a water trough (four out of five) or to objects used for rubbing (four out of seven). This field furniture had been used by the scrapie-infected flock 8 weeks earlier and had previously been shown to harbor scrapie prions by sPMCA. Sheep also became infected (20 out of 23) through exposure to contaminated field furniture placed within pasture not used by scrapie-infected sheep for 40 months, even though swabs from this furniture tested negative by PMCA. This infection rate decreased (1 out of 12) on the same paddock after replacement with clean field furniture. Twelve grazing sheep exposed to field furniture not in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for 18 months remained scrapie free. The findings of this study highlight the role of field furniture used by scrapie-infected sheep to act as a reservoir for disease re-introduction although infectivity declines considerably if the field furniture has not been in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for several months. PMCA may not be as sensitive as VRQ/VRQ sheep to test for environmental contamination.

 

snip...

 

Discussion

 

Classical scrapie is an environmentally transmissible disease because it has been reported in naïve, supposedly previously unexposed sheep placed in pastures formerly occupied by scrapie-infected sheep (4, 19, 20). Although the vector for disease transmission is not known, soil is likely to be an important reservoir for prions (2) where – based on studies in rodents – prions can adhere to minerals as a biologically active form (21) and remain infectious for more than 2 years (22). Similarly, chronic wasting disease (CWD) has re-occurred in mule deer housed in paddocks used by infected deer 2 years earlier, which was assumed to be through foraging and soil consumption (23).

 

Our study suggested that the risk of acquiring scrapie infection was greater through exposure to contaminated wooden, plastic, and metal surfaces via water or food troughs, fencing, and hurdles than through grazing. Drinking from a water trough used by the scrapie flock was sufficient to cause infection in sheep in a clean building. Exposure to fences and other objects used for rubbing also led to infection, which supported the hypothesis that skin may be a vector for disease transmission (9). The risk of these objects to cause infection was further demonstrated when 87% of 23 sheep presented with PrPSc in lymphoid tissue after grazing on one of the paddocks, which contained metal hurdles, a metal lamb creep and a water trough in contact with the scrapie flock up to 8 weeks earlier, whereas no infection had been demonstrated previously in sheep grazing on this paddock, when equipped with new fencing and field furniture. When the contaminated furniture and fencing were removed, the infection rate dropped significantly to 8% of 12 sheep, with soil of the paddock as the most likely source of infection caused by shedding of prions from the scrapie-infected sheep in this paddock up to a week earlier.

 

This study also indicated that the level of contamination of field furniture sufficient to cause infection was dependent on two factors: stage of incubation period and time of last use by scrapie-infected sheep. Drinking from a water trough that had been used by scrapie sheep in the predominantly pre-clinical phase did not appear to cause infection, whereas infection was shown in sheep drinking from the water trough used by scrapie sheep in the later stage of the disease. It is possible that contamination occurred through shedding of prions in saliva, which may have contaminated the surface of the water trough and subsequently the water when it was refilled. Contamination appeared to be sufficient to cause infection only if the trough was in contact with sheep that included clinical cases. Indeed, there is an increased risk of bodily fluid infectivity with disease progression in scrapie (24) and CWD (25) based on PrPSc detection by sPMCA. Although ultraviolet light and heat under natural conditions do not inactivate prions (26), furniture in contact with the scrapie flock, which was assumed to be sufficiently contaminated to cause infection, did not act as vector for disease if not used for 18 months, which suggest that the weathering process alone was sufficient to inactivate prions.

 

PrPSc detection by sPMCA is increasingly used as a surrogate for infectivity measurements by bioassay in sheep or mice. In this reported study, however, the levels of PrPSc present in the environment were below the limit of detection of the sPMCA method, yet were still sufficient to cause infection of in-contact animals. In the present study, the outdoor objects were removed from the infected flock 8 weeks prior to sampling and were positive by sPMCA at very low levels (2 out of 37 reactions). As this sPMCA assay also yielded 2 positive reactions out of 139 in samples from the scrapie-free farm, the sPMCA assay could not detect PrPSc on any of the objects above the background of the assay. False positive reactions with sPMCA at a low frequency associated with de novo formation of infectious prions have been reported (27, 28). This is in contrast to our previous study where we demonstrated that outdoor objects that had been in contact with the scrapie-infected flock up to 20 days prior to sampling harbored PrPSc that was detectable by sPMCA analysis [4 out of 15 reactions (12)] and was significantly more positive by the assay compared to analogous samples from the scrapie-free farm. This discrepancy could be due to the use of a different sPMCA substrate between the studies that may alter the efficiency of amplification of the environmental PrPSc. In addition, the present study had a longer timeframe between the objects being in contact with the infected flock and sampling, which may affect the levels of extractable PrPSc. Alternatively, there may be potentially patchy contamination of this furniture with PrPSc, which may have been missed by swabbing. The failure of sPMCA to detect CWD-associated PrP in saliva from clinically affected deer despite confirmation of infectivity in saliva-inoculated transgenic mice was associated with as yet unidentified inhibitors in saliva (29), and it is possible that the sensitivity of sPMCA is affected by other substances in the tested material. In addition, sampling of amplifiable PrPSc and subsequent detection by sPMCA may be more difficult from furniture exposed to weather, which is supported by the observation that PrPSc was detected by sPMCA more frequently in indoor than outdoor furniture (12). A recent experimental study has demonstrated that repeated cycles of drying and wetting of prion-contaminated soil, equivalent to what is expected under natural weathering conditions, could reduce PMCA amplification efficiency and extend the incubation period in hamsters inoculated with soil samples (30). This seems to apply also to this study even though the reduction in infectivity was more dramatic in the sPMCA assays than in the sheep model. Sheep were not kept until clinical end-point, which would have enabled us to compare incubation periods, but the lack of infection in sheep exposed to furniture that had not been in contact with scrapie sheep for a longer time period supports the hypothesis that prion degradation and subsequent loss of infectivity occurs even under natural conditions.

 

In conclusion, the results in the current study indicate that removal of furniture that had been in contact with scrapie-infected animals should be recommended, particularly since cleaning and decontamination may not effectively remove scrapie infectivity (31), even though infectivity declines considerably if the pasture and the field furniture have not been in contact with scrapie-infected sheep for several months. As sPMCA failed to detect PrPSc in furniture that was subjected to weathering, even though exposure led to infection in sheep, this method may not always be reliable in predicting the risk of scrapie infection through environmental contamination. These results suggest that the VRQ/VRQ sheep model may be more sensitive than sPMCA for the detection of environmentally associated scrapie, and suggest that extremely low levels of scrapie contamination are able to cause infection in susceptible sheep genotypes.

 

Keywords: classical scrapie, prion, transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, sheep, field furniture, reservoir, serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification

 


 

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

 

*** Objects in contact with classical scrapie sheep act as a reservoir for scrapie transmission ***

 


 

Circulation of prions within dust on a scrapie affected farm

 

Kevin C Gough1, Claire A Baker2, Hugh A Simmons3, Steve A Hawkins3 and Ben C Maddison2*

 

Abstract

 

Prion diseases are fatal neurological disorders that affect humans and animals. Scrapie of sheep/goats and Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) of deer/elk are contagious prion diseases where environmental reservoirs have a direct link to the transmission of disease. Using protein misfolding cyclic amplification we demonstrate that scrapie PrPSc can be detected within circulating dusts that are present on a farm that is naturally contaminated with sheep scrapie. The presence of infectious scrapie within airborne dusts may represent a possible route of infection and illustrates the difficulties that may be associated with the effective decontamination of such scrapie affected premises.

 

snip...

 

Discussion

 

We present biochemical data illustrating the airborne movement of scrapie containing material within a contaminated farm environment. We were able to detect scrapie PrPSc within extracts from dusts collected over a 70 day period, in the absence of any sheep activity. We were also able to detect scrapie PrPSc within dusts collected within pasture at 30 m but not at 60 m distance away from the scrapie contaminated buildings, suggesting that the chance of contamination of pasture by scrapie contaminated dusts decreases with distance from contaminated farm buildings. PrPSc amplification by sPMCA has been shown to correlate with infectivity and amplified products have been shown to be infectious [14,15]. These experiments illustrate the potential for low dose scrapie infectivity to be present within such samples. We estimate low ng levels of scrapie positive brain equivalent were deposited per m2 over 70 days, in a barn previously occupied by sheep affected with scrapie. This movement of dusts and the accumulation of low levels of scrapie infectivity within this environment may in part explain previous observations where despite stringent pen decontamination regimens healthy lambs still became scrapie infected after apparent exposure from their environment alone [16]. The presence of sPMCA seeding activity and by inference, infectious prions within dusts, and their potential for airborne dissemination is highly novel and may have implications for the spread of scrapie within infected premises. The low level circulation and accumulation of scrapie prion containing dust material within the farm environment will likely impede the efficient decontamination of such scrapie contaminated buildings unless all possible reservoirs of dust are removed. Scrapie containing dusts could possibly infect animals during feeding and drinking, and respiratory and conjunctival routes may also be involved. It has been demonstrated that scrapie can be efficiently transmitted via the nasal route in sheep [17], as is also the case for CWD in both murine models and in white tailed deer [18-20].

 

The sources of dust borne prions are unknown but it seems reasonable to assume that faecal, urine, skin, parturient material and saliva-derived prions may contribute to this mobile environmental reservoir of infectivity. This work highlights a possible transmission route for scrapie within the farm environment, and this is likely to be paralleled in CWD which shows strong similarities with scrapie in terms of prion dissemination and disease transmission. The data indicate that the presence of scrapie prions in dust is likely to make the control of these diseases a considerable challenge.

 


 

Friday, February 05, 2016

 

*** Report of the Committee on Wildlife Diseases FY2015 CWD TSE PRION Detections in Farmed Cervids and Wild ***

 


 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

 

Texas Deer-breeder drops suit against state over Chronic Wasting Disease CWD disease tactics

 


 

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

 

TVMDL hosts legislative representatives, discusses CWD

 


 

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

 

The first detection of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in Europe

 


 

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

 

Docket No. FDA-2013-N-0764 for Animal Feed Regulatory Program Standards Singeltary Comment Submission

 


 

Saturday, April 16, 2016

 

APHIS [Docket No. APHIS-2016-0029] Secretary's Advisory Committee on Animal Health; Meeting May 2, 2016, and June 16, 2016 Singeltary Submission

 


 

Sunday, March 20, 2016

 

*** UPDATED MARCH 2016 URGENT Docket No. FDA-2003-D-0432 (formerly 03D-0186) Use of Material from Deer and Elk in Animal Feed Singeltary Submission

 


 

Monday, April 11, 2016

 

*** DECLARATION OF EXTRAORDINARY EMERGENCY DUE TO A FOREIGN ANIMAL DISEASE TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY TSE PRION CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD IN THE UNITED STATES AND NORTH AMERICA ?

 


 

Saturday, April 02, 2016

 

TEXAS TAHC BREAKS IT'S SILENCE WITH TWO MORE CASES CWD CAPTIVE DEER BRINGING TOTAL TO 10 CAPTIVES REPORTED TO DATE

 


 

Friday, February 26, 2016

 

TEXAS Hartley County Mule Deer Tests Positive for Chronic Wasting Disease CWD TSE Prion

 


 

Friday, February 05, 2016

 

TEXAS NEW CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD CASE DISCOVERD AT CAPTIVE DEER RELEASE SITE

 


 

Friday, April 08, 2016

 

Arkansas AGFC Chronic Wasting Disease CWD TSE Prion Confirms 23 Additional Cases Total At 79 To Date

 


 

Friday, April 01, 2016

 

ARKANSAS CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD TSE PRION CASES EXPLODE BY 27 NEW CASES WITH 50 CASES TOTAL TO DATE

 


 

WISCONSIN CWD CASES OUT OF CONTROL

 

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 Wisconsin CWD sample survey 2015 confirms 290 cases of Chronic Wasting Disease TSE Prion

 


 

KANSAS CWD CASES ALARMING

 

Wednesday, March 02, 2016 Kansas Chronic Wasting Disease CWD TSE Prion 52 cases 2015 updated report 'ALARMING'

 


 

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

 

Illinois six out of 19 deer samples tested positive for CWD in the Oswego zone of Kendall County

 


 

I could go on, for more see ;

 

Thursday, March 31, 2016

 

*** Chronic Wasting Disease CWD TSE Prion Roundup USA 2016 ***

 


 

Thursday, April 07, 2016

 

What is the risk of chronic wasting disease being introduced into Great Britain? An updated Qualitative Risk Assessment March 2016

 

Sheep and cattle may be exposed to CWD via common grazing areas with affected deer but so far, appear to be poorly susceptible to mule deer CWD (Sigurdson, 2008).

 

***In contrast, cattle are highly susceptible to white-tailed deer CWD and mule deer CWD in experimental conditions but no natural CWD infections in cattle have been reported (Sigurdson, 2008; Hamir et al., 2006). It is not known how susceptible humans are to CWD but given that the prion can be present in muscle, it is likely that humans have been exposed to the agent via consumption of venison (Sigurdson, 2008). Initial experimental research, however, suggests that human susceptibility to CWD is low and there may be a robust species barrier for CWD transmission to humans (Sigurdson, 2008). It is apparent, though, that CWD is affecting wild and farmed cervid populations in endemic areas with some deer populations decreasing as a result.

 

snip...

 

For the purpose of the qualitative risk assessment developed here it is necessary to estimate the probability that a 30-ml bottle of lure contains urine from an infected deer. This requires an estimate of the proportion of deer herds in the USA which are infected with CWD together with the within herd prevalence.

 

The distribution map of CWD in US shows it is present mainly in central states (Figure 1). However, Virginia in the east of the country has recorded seven recent cases of CWD (Anon 2015a). Some US manufacturers claim to take steps to prevent urine being taken from infected animals eg by sourcing from farms where the deer are randomly tested for CWD (Anon 2015a). However, if disease is already present and testing is not carried out regularly, captive populations are not necessarily disease free (Strausser 2014). Urine-based deer lures have been known to be collected from domestic white-tailed deer herds and therefore there is a recognised risk. This is reflected by 6 US States which have

 

14

 

banned the use of natural deer urine for lures, as the deer urine may be sourced from CWD-endemic areas in the USA as well as from areas free of CWD. For example, the US State of Virginia is banning the use of urine-based deer lures on July 2015 and Vermont from 2016 due to the risk of spread of CWD. Alaska banned their use in 2012 (Anon 2015a). Pennsylvania Game Commission has banned urine-based deer lures and acknowledged that there is no way to detect their use (Strausser 2014). On the basis of unpublished data (J. Manson, Pers. Comm.) it appears that up to 50% of deer herds can be infected with 80-90% of animals infected within some herds.

 

*** It is therefore assumed that probability that a 30-ml bottle of deer urine lure imported from the USA is sources from an infected deer is medium.

 

SNIP...

 

In the USA, under the Food and Drug Administration’s BSE Feed Regulation (21 CFR 589.2000) most material (exceptions include milk, tallow, and gelatin) from deer and elk is prohibited for use in feed for ruminant animals. With regards to feed for non-ruminant animals, under FDA law, CWD positive deer may not be used for any animal feed or feed ingredients. ***For elk and deer considered at high risk for CWD, the FDA recommends that these animals do not enter the animal feed system. ***However, this recommendation is guidance and not a requirement by law.

 

***Animals considered at high risk for CWD include:

 

***1) animals from areas declared to be endemic for CWD and/or to be CWD eradication zones and

 

***2) deer and elk that at some time during the 60-month period prior to slaughter were in a captive herd that contained a CWD-positive animal.

 

***Therefore, in the USA, materials from cervids other than CWD positive animals may be used in animal feed and feed ingredients for non-ruminants. The amount of animal PAP that is of deer and/or elk origin imported from the USA to GB cannot be determined, however, as it is not specified in TRACES. It may constitute a small percentage of the very low tonnage of non-fish origin processed animal proteins that were imported from US into GB.

 

*** Overall, therefore, it is considered there is a greater than negligible risk that (non-ruminant) animal feed and pet food containing deer and/or elk protein is imported into GB. There is uncertainty associated with this estimate given the lack of data on the amount of deer and/or elk protein possibly being imported in these products.

 

SNIP...

 


 

Summary and MORE HERE ;

 

What is the risk of chronic wasting disease being introduced into Great Britain? An updated Qualitative Risk Assessment March 2016

 


 

 

Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Bacliff, Texas USA flounder9@verizon.net