[Duurzaamlijst] Mad Cow Disease: The Chemical Industry Plays Dirty

[geno@zap.a2000.nl]

On 8 Feb 2001, at 17:48, info wrote:

 
http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/2001/01/bse/

Mad Cow Disease: The Chemical Industry Plays Dirty
BY DR. PAUL KAIL
ACTIVISM | 01.17.01


BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), or Mad Cow Disease, 
and its
human form, nvCJD (New Variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease), are
incurable brain disorders. Holes appear in victims' brains, then they
become demented and die. The diseases are not caused by a virus 
or a
bacterium, but by a mysterious type of twisted protein, known as a
"prion". The prion can propagate itself by causing other proteins to
twist into the same shape. Prions can be passed on by eating the 
flesh
of another animal, and are

resistant to cooking and digestion. A theory about how prions are
formed suggests that organophosphate pesticides could be partly to
blame.

Two people have already died defending this theory, apparently at 
the
hands of professional assassins working either for the British
government or the chemical industry.

So the theory needs to be taken seriously. BSE first appeared in the
UK in 1985. Since then, the disease has affected half of the cow herds
in the country. New Variant CJD also first appeared in the UK, ten
years later: to date, around 90 people have died from it. Both BSE and
CDJ are beginning to spread throughout the rest of Europe; today, 30
European countries have had exports of their cattle banned. The
diseases have the potential to destroy the entire European cattle
industry, and kill thousands of people. The death toll from nvCJD is
increasing by 35% per year, and the disease has a gestation period of
twenty years. Some projections suggest that hundreds of thousands of
people could eventually die from it. Given the huge amount at stake,
one might expect that any credible theory would be welcomed. Yet Mark
Purdey, a British farmer from Somerset, has suffered constant

harassment and has had to support his research from his own pocket.
Purdey has a theory which might explain the mystery of why BSE and new
variant nvCJD started in the UK, and why they are so much more serious
there. However, since he went public with his ideas, some rather
unfortunate things have happened: Both his vet and the lawyer
defending his case died in suspicious road

accidents. His second lawyer also had a car crash, but survived.

When an article about his work appeared in the "Independent", a
national
British newspaper, his telephone lines were cut. He was therefore
unable to take follow up calls from other papers and television
stations.

His farm house was burnt down just before he was about to move in.

His science library was destroyed by a collapsing barn.

When he travels around the country to talk about his theory, he is
constantly trailed. Purdey believes that the root cause of BSE is an
imbalance of

magnesium and copper, exacerbated, in the case of the UK, by the use
of a highly toxic pesticide known as phosmet. Phosphet is an
organophosphate nerve toxin, originally developed by the Nazis. It is
also related to the drug Thalidamide, which causes birth defects.
Phosmet is made by Zeneca, a subdivision of the British chemical giant
ICI. A week after the British government first announced the link
between BSE and nvCJD, Zeneca sold the patent for phosmet to a PO Box
company in Arizona, apparently to avoid

potential legal action. The theory started when Purdey noticed that
his cows, unlike those of his neighbours, were not getting BSE. Cows
often suffer from a parasitic infection known as warble fly. Since
Purdey is an organic farmer, he treated his herd with derris root
powder, a natural remedy. Other farmers were using phosmet, which was
later made compulsory throughout the UK. When Purdey bought an
infected cow from another herd, he was able to reduce the symptoms of
BSE by injecting oxime, which is an antidote to pesticide poisoning.
However, officials from MAFF (the Ministry for Agriculture,

Fisheries and Food) turned up to kill the cow before the experiment
could be completed. As well as the link to phosmet use, Purdey
discovered that brain diseases such as BSE and nvCJD appear in
clusters in many places around the world. The link seems to be a lack
of copper and an excess of manganese. For example, in some areas of
Colorado and Wyoming, 4-6% of deer and elk suffer from CWD (Chronic
Wasting Disease), which is related to nvCJD. These animals live in
areas where the soils are very high in manganese. In Slovakia, where
the incidence of nvCJD is a thousand times higher than normal, most of
the victims live near a glass making plant (where manganese is used)
or else down-wind of one of two large ferro-manganese factories. In
the UK, two factors have increased the amount of manganese which cows
consume. Until 1988, cows were fed chicken manure. The chicken had
been fed manganese to strengthen their eggs, but 98% of it ended up in
the manure. In addition, a fungicide rich in manganese was used on
crops at that time. According to Purdey, a lack of copper and an
excess of manganese causes proteins in the nervous system of foetal
cattle to change into the abnormal prion forms found in BSE and nvCJD.
Phosmet facilitates this process by binding to copper, and therefore
reducing the amount available to brain tissues. Recently, Dr David
Brown, a chemist at Cambridge University, showed that manganese can
replace copper in brain proteins, thereby transforming them into
prions. Dr Brown lost his funding, and was not able to continue the
research. The BSE crisis started in the UK, and that country still has
the highest rate of the disease. Purdey believes that this was because
the British government was the only one to enforce systemic phosmet at
such a high dose. Phosmet is used elsewhere, but either on a voluntary
basis, or at a much lower dose, or non-systemically. However, there is
a long lag between the peak of phosmet use and the incidence of BSE.
Purdey says that this is for two reasons. First, cows are most
susceptible to phosmet damage when they are in the womb. Second,
phosmet has to reach a certain concentration in the food-chain before
it has an effect.

Quite apart from the direct attacks on Mr Purdey, the chemical
industry have launched a media campaign to discredit his research.
Although MAFF claims that any credible theories for BSE will receive
funding, Purdey has received nothing. The effort that the chemical
industry has

apparently gone to to discredit Mark Purdey mirrors the experiences of
Alice Stewart, the scientist who first showed the link between
radiation and

cancer. Scientists who supported her had their cars rammed. Maybe in
this case as well, the truth will come out in the end.



Dr. Paul Kail has a Ph.D. in nueroscience from Cambridge University
and is founder and Director of the Animal Consciousness Foundation,
which can be reached via www.animals.org.









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