Infected sheep may have come from U.S., not Ontario farm where officials slaughtered flock, court hears
Infected sheep may have come from U.S., not Ontario farm where officials
slaughtered flock, court hears
Adrian Humphreys | February 27, 2015 | Last Updated: Mar 1 5:07 PM ET
The bizarre case of a flock of rare sheep — purportedly stolen from an
Ontario farm by agricultural activists to thwart a federal kill order during a
disease scare — was adjourned after government documents suggested the infected
sheep that sparked the high-profile standoff could have actually been an animal
from the United States.
Internal documents from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) also
suggest workers may have tried to cover up any potential mistake or withheld
information from its own reports, defence lawyers complain.
However, until more of the government’s records on the controversial case
are released, it is difficult to know precisely what has gone on since 2010,
when a sheep tested positive for scrapie, a degenerative disease in sheep
similar to the “mad cow disease” that affects cattle.
Whether the diseased sheep came from the Ontario ewe, as the CFIA publicly
says, or an American ram, as documents in court suggest it was once thought, is
important not only for the criminal case but also for cross-border agricultural
trade.
On Monday, a 22-page letter from Shawn Buckley, a B.C. lawyer defending
sheep owner Montana Jones against criminal charges, was submitted in court
asking for an adjournment until the government can provide fuller
documentation.
An internal CFIA email is quoted in Mr. Buckley’s letter saying: “The
tattoo on the animal indicates it was imported from the USA — may be interesting
… since this [is] a male and imported the focus goes to its herd of origin and
therefore doesn’t require much on this farm in Canada.”
The sheep on Ms. Jones’ farm was a female and had never been to the U.S.,
Ms. Jones said.
snip...
“We’ve got major concerns about disclosure in this case,” Mr. Buckley said
in an interview. “A key factor is going to be them being able to try to prove
that a sheep from Montana’s farm came down with scrapie in Alberta. And with the
disclosure I have to date there are holes — there are huge holes.”
Judge Lorne Chester ordered the adjournment until April 27 to allow time
for the government to provide more of its internal documents.
The sheep case was strange from the start.
In 2010, a sheep in Alberta tested positive for scrapie and the CFIA
started an investigation. The CFIA then declared the sheep came from Ms. Jones’
farm in Hastings, 170 kilometres east of Toronto, where she bred Shropshire
Sheep, a rare breed that traces its lineage back to the first sheep imported to
Canada from England.
The CFIA moved to slaughter her flock. She fought to save them, often
through emotional standoffs.
Before CFIA officers and police arrived at her farm in 2012 with an order
to destroy 31 sheep, including 20 pregnant ewes, the flock went missing during
the night.
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
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
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.
Friday, January 30, 2015
*** Scrapie: a particularly persistent pathogen ***
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
National Scrapie Eradication Program November 2014 Monthly Report Fiscal
Year 2015
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Scrapie confirmed at quarantined sheep farm Canada CFIA
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
20120402 - Breach of quarantine/Violation de la mise en quarantaine of an
ongoing Scrapie investigation
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Atypical Scrapie NOR-98 confirmed Alberta Canada sheep January 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
atypical Nor-98 Scrapie has spread from coast to coast in the USA 2012
NIAA Annual Conference April 11-14, 2011San Antonio, Texas
Monday, November 30, 2009
USDA AND OIE COLLABORATE TO EXCLUDE ATYPICAL SCRAPIE NOR-98 ANIMAL HEALTH
CODE
Friday, June 8, 2012
Canadian Food Inspection Agency locates missing sheep
Sunday, May 27, 2012
CANADA PLANS TO IMPRISON ANYONE SPEAKING ABOUT MAD COW or ANY OTHER DISEASE
OUTBREAK, CENSORSHIP IS A TERRIBLE THING
EDMONTON - Some of former Alberta premier Ralph Klein's most colourful
quotes — and the reactions they elicited:
SNIP
"This all came about through the discovery of a single, isolated case of
mad cow disease in one Alberta cow on May 20th. The farmer — I think he was a
Louisiana fish farmer who knew nothing about cattle ranching. I guess any
self-respecting rancher would have shot, shovelled and shut up, but he didn't do
that." — Klein recalls how the mad cow crisis started and rancher Marwyn
Peaster's role. The premier was speaking at the Western Governors Association
meeting in Big Sky, Mont. September 2004.
"The premier meant that in an ironic or almost a sarcastic way." — Klein
spokesman Gordon Turtle.
"You would have to eat 10 billion meals of brains, spinal cords, ganglia,
eyeballs and tonsils." — Klein speaking in Montreal in January 2005 on the risk
of humans contracting mad cow disease.
"I would offer $5 billion to have a Japanese person to come over here and
eat nothing but Alberta beef for a year. And if he gets mad cow disease, I would
be glad to give him $5 billion — make it $10 billion — Canadian." — Klein
speaking after Japan closed its borders to Canadian beef.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY REPORT UPDATE CANADA FEBRUARY 2011
and how to hide mad cow disease in Canada Current as of: 2011-01-31
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
REPORT ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE SIXTEENTH CASE OF BOVINE SPONGIFORM
ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE) IN CANADA
Thursday, August 19, 2010
REPORT ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE SEVENTEENTH CASE OF BOVINE SPONGIFORM
ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE) IN CANADA
Friday, March 4, 2011
Alberta dairy cow found with mad cow disease
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Canada, USA, Bad feed, mad cows: Why we know three BSE cases had a common
origin and why the SSS policy is in full force $$$
Increased Atypical Scrapie Detections
Press reports indicate that increased surveillance is catching what
otherwise would have been unreported findings of atypical scrapie in sheep. In
2009, five new cases have been reported in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta, and
Saskatchewan. With the exception of Quebec, all cases have been diagnosed as
being the atypical form found in older animals. Canada encourages producers to
join its voluntary surveillance program in order to gain scrapie-free status.
The World Animal Health will not classify Canada as scrapie-free until no new
cases are reported for seven years. The Canadian Sheep Federation is calling on
the government to fund a wider surveillance program in order to establish the
level of prevalence prior to setting an eradication date. Besides long-term
testing, industry is calling for a compensation program for farmers who report
unusual deaths in their flocks.
Current as of: 2015-01-31
Sheep flocks and/or goat herds confirmed to be infected with classical
scrapie in Canada in 2015 Date confirmed Location Animal type infected January 5
Ontario Goat
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Alberta Canada First case of chronic wasting disease found in farm elk
since 2002
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
OIE Bovine spongiform encephalopathy ,Canada
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Canadian Food Inspection Agency Confirms Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(BSE) in Alberta
Friday, February 20, 2015
A BSE CANADIAN COW MAD COW UPDATE Transcript - Briefing (February 18, 2015)
Monday, February 23, 2015
20th BSE Case Raises New Concerns about Canada's Feeding Practices and
Voluntary Testing Program; Highlights Importance of COOL
Friday, February 20, 2015
APHIS Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Appeal Mouse Bio-Assays
2007-00030-A Sheep Imported From Belgium and the Presence of TSE Prion Disease
Kevin Shea to Singeltary 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
*** Could we spot the next BSE?, asks BVA President ***
Saturday, February 28, 2015
BSE CANADA UPDATE Transcript - Technical Briefing to Provide an Update on
Investigation of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in Alberta February 27, 2015
4:00 p.m.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
*** Alberta Canada First case of chronic wasting disease found in farm elk
since 2002
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
NASDA BSE, CWD, SCRAPIE, TSE, PRION, Policy Statements updated with
amendments passed during the NASDA Annual Meeting Updated September 18, 2014
Sunday, December 28, 2014
CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD TSE PRION DISEASE AKA MAD DEER DISIEASE USDA
USAHA INC DECEMBER 28, 2014
Subject: *** Becky Lockhart 46, Utah’s first female House speaker, dies
diagnosed with the extremely rare Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease aka mad cow type
disease
what is CJD ? just ask USDA inc., and the OIE, they are still feeding the
public and the media industry fed junk science that is 30 years old.
why doesn’t some of you try reading the facts, instead of rubber stamping
everything the USDA inc says.
sporadic CJD has now been linked to BSE aka mad cow disease, Scrapie, and
there is much concern now for CWD and risk factor for humans.
My sincere condolences to the family and friends of the House Speaker Becky
Lockhart. I am deeply saddened hear this.
with that said, with great respect, I must ask each and every one of you
Politicians that are so deeply saddened to hear of this needless death of the
Honorable House Speaker Becky Lockhart, really, cry me a friggen river. I am
seriously going to ask you all this...I have been diplomatic for about 17 years
and it has got no where. people are still dying. so, are you all stupid or
what??? how many more need to die ??? how much is global trade of beef and other
meat products that are not tested for the TSE prion disease, how much and how
many bodies is this market worth?
Saturday, January 17, 2015
*** Becky Lockhart 46, Utah’s first female House speaker, dies diagnosed
with the extremely rare Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Thursday, January 15, 2015
41-year-old Navy Commander with sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease CJD TSE
Prion: Case Report
*** HUMAN MAD COW DISEASE nvCJD TEXAS CASE NOT LINKED TO EUROPEAN TRAVEL
CDC ***
Sunday, November 23, 2014
*** Confirmed Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (variant CJD) Case in Texas
in June 2014 confirmed as USA case NOT European
the patient had resided in Kuwait, Russia and Lebanon. The completed
investigation did not support the patient's having had extended travel to
European countries, including the United Kingdom, or travel to Saudi Arabia. The
specific overseas country where this patient’s infection occurred is less clear
largely because the investigation did not definitely link him to a country where
other known vCJD cases likely had been infected.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
ALERT new variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease nvCJD or vCJD, sporadic CJD
strains, TSE prion aka Mad Cow Disease United States of America Update December
14, 2014 Report
Sunday, February 08, 2015
FDA SCIENCE BOARD TO THE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION BOVINE HEPARIN BSE
CJD TSE PRION Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Transmission properties of atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: a clue to
disease etiology?
Saturday, December 13, 2014
Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Publications TSE prion disease
Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Singeltary, Sr et al. JAMA.2001; 285: 733-734. Vol. 285 No. 6, February 14,
2001 JAMA
snip...
TSS
posted by Terry S. Singeltary Sr. | 10:14 AM
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