(Article changed on September 6, 2013 at 14:11)
(Article changed on September 5, 2013 at 09:12)
(Article changed on September 5, 2013 at 09:06)
New Hampshire health officials are investigating a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, sometimes called human mad cow disease, which may have spread to surgical patients through contaminated instrumentation. Mad cow in cattle, called BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), is believed to be spread by proteins called prions which are essentially indestructible.
Though prions are not technically "alive" because they lack
a nucleus, they manage to reproduce and are almost impossible to "kill." They
are not inactivated by cooking, heat, autoclaves, ammonia, bleach, hydrogen
peroxide, alcohol, phenol, lye, formaldehyde, or radiation, and they remain in
the soil, contaminating it for years. Alcohol actually makes prions more
transmissible by binding them to metal like surgical instruments. A scientific
paper says that after a prion-contaminated electrode was treated with "benzene,
70 percent ethanol, and formaldehyde vapor," it still transmitted CJD to two
patients." Needless to say, surgeons and morticians approach CJD cases with
trepidation.
There is a "small, but definite, risk that the surgeon or others who handle the brain tissue may become accidentally infected by self-inoculation," says the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. That means CJD tests are not always conducted.
US beef imports are still
limping back after three US cows were diagnosed with BSE in the early 2000's.
Two were born in the US and one was imported from Canada and slaughtered in
Washington state. Within 24 hours of the USDA's first mad-cow announcement late
in 2003, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore,
Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, and 90 other countries banned US beef. The only
reason the European Union didn't ban it was was already banned it for its hormone content. Ninety-eight percent of
the United States' $3 billion overseas beef market evaporated almost overnight
thanks to mad cow.
With such money at stake and
the domestic beef market to consider, it is not surprising that government
officials play down mad cow risks. Even a rumor roils beef futures markets. But
a quick look at previous government assurances of public safety during mad cow
risks is not comforting.
With the US's first mad cow,
found in Washington state, the government said, "By December 27, 2003, FDA had
located all potentially infectious product rendered from the BSE-positive cow
in Washington State. This product was disposed of in a landfill in accordance
with Federal, State and local regulations" Sounds good except that two major
newspapers disagreed.
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