US accused of not sharing enough data
By Park Jae-hyuk
The meat of a cow infected with mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), could have been sold here, as the U.S. health authorities did not notice the outbreak of the disease before the cow's death in Alabama last month, according to a legal expert here, Tuesday.
Song Ki-ho of the Lawyers for a Democratic Society disclosed a letter purportedly sent to the government from the U.S. Embassy in Korea. The letter was written under the name of the agricultural affairs official and included additional information on the contaminated cow.
According to the lawyer, the letter reads that the cow died on the night of July 5, before it was transported to a slaughterhouse, and that an official from the Veterinary Services in Alabama took a tissue sample afterwards.
"This means that the U.S. government officials did not know the cow was contaminated before its death," Song said. "If the cow had been sent to a slaughterhouse before it died, its meat would have been on the market. Unless the U.S. government carries out overall inspections on cows there, the country's monitoring of mad cow disease won't be trustworthy."
The page-long letter explained how the U.S. health authorities detected the infection between July 6 and 13.
However, it still did not have the results of an epidemiologic survey, including the cow's age estimation, details on the farm and information on other cows raised there.
Seoul and Washington agreed that the latter immediately launch an epidemiologic investigation and notify the results in case of additional BSE outbreaks in the United States.
Song claimed the U.S. government is breaking its promise to the Korean government.
Diseases & welfare
Infected US beef could have been on sale
Posted : 2017-08-22 17:07Updated : 2017-08-22 19:42
"The Korean health authorities should stop importing U.S. beef, until the epidemiologic survey results come out," he said. "Also, the requirement for the U.S. beef import should be as strict as that of China, which prohibits the importing of untraceable U.S. beef."
Hopes for FTA renegotiation
In addition to the controversy, livestock farmers in the two countries have lobbied each of their governments which began talks Tuesday over possible revisions to their bilateral Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA).
The Hanwoo Association in Korea has urged the agriculture ministry to make it easier to take measures to safeguard against U.S. beef and delay the plan to eliminate tariffs on the product. Hanwoo refers to Korean beef. The Korean farmers also want stricter requirements for U.S. beef imports, including a ban in the case of a BSE outbreak.
They said the Korean government should take measures to increase the consumption of Korean beef.
The U.S. farmers, on the other hand, opposed the renegotiation of the KORUS FTA.
National Cattlemen's Beef Association and U.S. Meat Export Federation sent a letter last month to a U.S. agriculture minister, demanding it stop the procedures to revise the agreement.
They are known to have raked in huge profits from Korean consumers since the deal.
The share of U.S. beef in the Korean market has continued to grow, surpassing that of the Australian beef, according to the agriculture ministry here.
''US accused of not sharing enough data''
this was an understatement of mass proportions. this is what USDA inc and the OIE do. it's all about money, a few more body bags will not matter. in reality, the USDA OIE et al are guilty of poisoning the public around the world with the BSE MRR policy, a legal tool used to trade TSE prion disease around the globe, legally. this was done knowingly, with will, and with severe negligence, criminal negligence, but i would stop short of with malice, for now. but USDA inc and OIE are walking a fine line now towards that legality, imo. you can only ignore science for so long with junk science, blame it on ignorance for just so long, then it becomes criminal. that's my ruling anyway. ...Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 2017
JAVMA NEWS Atypical BSE found in Alabama cow September 01, 2017
2017
TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2017
USDA announces Alabama case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy Alabama
THURSDAY, JULY 20, 2017
USDA OIE Alabama Atypical L-type BASE Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy BSE animal feeds for ruminants rule, 21 CFR 589.200
SUNDAY, JULY 23, 2017
atypical L-type BASE Bovine Amyloidotic Spongiform Encephalopathy BSE TSE PRION
SUNDAY, JULY 23, 2017
Experimental Infection of Cattle With a Novel Prion Derived From Atypical H-Type Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 2017
Similarities of Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Strain in Mother and Son in Spain to UK Reference Case
MONDAY, AUGUST 21, 2017
Chronic Wasting Disease Prion Strain Emergence and Host Range Expansion
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 05, 2017
Disease-associated prion protein detected in lymphoid tissues from pigs challenged with the agent of chronic wasting disease
MONDAY, AUGUST 14, 2017
Experimental transmission of the chronic wasting disease agent to swine after oral or intracranial inoculation
TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2017
*** EXTREME USA FDA PART 589 TSE PRION FEED LOOP HOLE STILL EXIST, AND PRICE OF POKER GOES UP ***
TUESDAY, MARCH 28, 2017
*** Passage of scrapie to deer results in a new phenotype upon return passage to sheep ***
SPONTANEOUS ATYPICAL BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY
***Moreover, sporadic disease has never been observed in breeding colonies or primate research laboratories, most notably among hundreds of animals over several decades of study at the National Institutes of Health25, and in nearly twenty older animals continuously housed in our own facility.***
MONDAY, JULY 17, 2017
National Scrapie Eradication Program May 2017 Monthly Report Fiscal Year 2017
TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2017
MINK FARMING USA TRANSMISSIBLE MINK ENCEPHALOPATHY TSE PRION DISEASE SURVEILLANCE AND TESTING
TUESDAY, AUGUST 8, 2017
Concurrence With OIE Risk Designations for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy [Docket No. APHIS-2016-0092]
WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2017
APHIS USDA Emerging Animal Disease Preparedness and Response Plan July 2017
2001 FDA CJD TSE Prion Singeltary Submission
*** U.S.A. 50 STATE BSE MAD COW CONFERENCE CALL Jan. 9, 2001
THURSDAY, AUGUST 17, 2017
*** Monitoring the occurrence of emerging forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United States revisited 2017 ***
FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 2017
*** Infectivity in bone marrow from sporadic CJD patients ***
Bioassays in transgenic mice expressing the human prion protein revealed the presence of unexpectedly high levels of infectivity in the bone marrow from seven out of eight sCJD cases. These findings may explain the presence of blood-borne infectivity in sCJD patients. They also suggest that the distribution of prion infectivity in peripheral tissues in sCJD patients could be wider than currently believed, with potential implications for the iatrogenic transmission risk of this disease.
SATURDAY, JULY 15, 2017
National Prion Center could lose all funding just as concern about CWD jumping to humans rises
THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2017
TEXAS CREUTZFELDT JAKOB DISEASE CJD TSE PRION
THURSDAY, JUNE 22, 2017
National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center Cases Examined(1) (May 18, 2017)
According to the Ohio-based CJD Foundation, CJD strikes roughly one out of a million people.
“But that number is deceptive,” said CJD Foundation President Florence Kranitz, “because CJD is often underreported and underdiagnosed, and it doesn’t affect infants, children or young adults — so for adults over 55, we think the number is closer to one in 9,000.”
TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2017
BSE INQUIRY DFA 17 Medicines and medical devices
TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2017
Could Insulin be contaminated with and potentially spread, Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy TSE Prion, what if?
DFA 18
COSMETICS
DFA 17
Medicines and medical devices
DFA 16
MID 1995 TO THE FINAL DAYS farmers with BSE, teenagers with cjd,
Tracking spongiform encephalopathies in North America
Xavier Bosch
Published: August 2003
Summary;
“My name is Terry S Singeltary Sr, and I live in Bacliff, Texas. I lost my mom to hvCJD (Heidenhain variant CJD) and have been searching for answers ever since. What I have found is that we have not been told the truth. CWD in deer and elk is a small portion of a much bigger problem.”
49-year-old Singeltary is one of a number of people who have remained largely unsatisfied after being told that a close relative died from a rapidly progressive dementia compatible with spontaneous Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). So he decided to gather hundreds of documents on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) and realised that if Britons could get variant CJD from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Americans might get a similar disorder from chronic wasting disease (CWD) the relative of mad cow disease seen among deer and elk in the USA. Although his feverish search did not lead him to the smoking gun linking CWD to a similar disease in North American people, it did uncover a largely disappointing situation.
Singeltary was greatly demoralised at the few attempts to monitor the occurrence of CJD and CWD in the USA. Only a few states have made CJD reportable. Human and animal TSEs should be reportable nationwide and internationally, he complained in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 2003; 285: 733). "I hope that the CDC does not continue to expect us to still believe that the 85% plus of all CJD cases which are sporadic are all spontaneous, without route or source."
Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Singeltary, Sr et al. JAMA.2001; 285: 733-734. Vol. 285 No. 6, February 14, 2001 JAMA
Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
To the Editor: In their Research Letter, Dr Gibbons and colleagues1 reported that the annual US death rate due to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) has been stable since 1985. These estimates, however, are based only on reported cases, and do not include misdiagnosed or preclinical cases. It seems to me that misdiagnosis alone would drastically change these figures. An unknown number of persons with a diagnosis of Alzheimer disease in fact may have CJD, although only a small number of these patients receive the postmortem examination necessary to make this diagnosis. Furthermore, only a few states have made CJD reportable. Human and animal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies should be reportable nationwide and internationally.
Terry S. Singeltary, Sr Bacliff, Tex
1. Gibbons RV, Holman RC, Belay ED, Schonberger LB. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the United States: 1979-1998. JAMA. 2000;284:2322-2323.
Until recently, CWD was thought to be confined to the wild in a small region in Colorado. But since early 2002, it has been reported in other areas, including Wisconsin, South Dakota, and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Indeed, the occurrence of CWD in states that were not endemic previously increased concern about a widespread outbreak and possible transmission to people and cattle.
To date, experimental studies have proven that the CWD agent can be transmitted to cattle by intracerebral inoculation and that it can cross the mucous membranes of the digestive tract to initiate infection in lymphoid tissue before invasion of the central nervous system. Yet the plausibility of CWD spreading to people has remained elusive.
Part of the problem seems to stem from the US surveillance system. CJD is only reported in those areas known to be endemic foci of CWD. Moreover, US authorities have been criticised for not having performed enough prionic tests in farm deer and elk.
Although in November last year the US Food and Drug Administration issued a directive to state public-health and agriculture officials prohibiting material from CWD-positive animals from being used as an ingredient in feed for any animal species, epidemiological control and research in the USA has been quite different from the situation in the UK and Europe regarding BSE.
"Getting data on TSEs in the USA from the government is like pulling teeth", Singeltary argues. "You get it when they want you to have it, and only what they want you to have."
Norman Foster, director of the Cognitive Disorders Clinic at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, MI, USA), says that "current surveillance of prion disease in people in the USA is inadequate to detect whether CWD is occurring in human beings"; adding that, "the cases that we know about are reassuring, because they do not suggest the appearance of a new variant of CJD in the USA or atypical features in patients that might be exposed to CWD. However, until we establish a system that identifies and analyses a high proportion of suspected prion disease cases we will not know for sure". The USA should develop a system modelled on that established in the UK, he points out.
Ali Samii, a neurologist at Seattle VA Medical Center who recently reported the cases of three hunters "two of whom were friends" who died from pathologically confirmed CJD, says that "at present there are insufficient data to claim transmission of CWD into humans"; adding that "[only] by asking [the questions of venison consumption and deer/elk hunting] in every case can we collect suspect cases and look into the plausibility of transmission further". Samii argues that by making both doctors and hunters more aware of the possibility of prions spreading through eating venison, doctors treating hunters with dementia can consider a possible prion disease, and doctors treating CJD patients will know to ask whether they ate venison.
CDC spokesman Ermias Belay says that the CDC "will not be investigating the [Samii] cases because there is no evidence that the men ate CWD-infected meat". He notes that although "the likelihood of CWD jumping the species barrier to infect humans cannot be ruled out 100%" and that "[we] cannot be 100% sure that CWD does not exist in humans& the data seeking evidence of CWD transmission to humans have been very limited".
26 March 2003
Terry S. Singeltary, retired (medically) CJD WATCH
I lost my mother to hvCJD (Heidenhain Variant CJD). I would like to comment on the CDC's attempts to monitor the occurrence of emerging forms of CJD. Asante, Collinge et al [1] have reported that BSE transmission to the 129-methionine genotype can lead to an alternate phenotype that is indistinguishable from type 2 PrPSc, the commonest sporadic CJD. However, CJD and all human TSEs are not reportable nationally. CJD and all human TSEs must be made reportable in every state and internationally. I hope that the CDC does not continue to expect us to still believe that the 85%+ of all CJD cases which are sporadic are all spontaneous, without route/source. We have many TSEs in the USA in both animal and man. CWD in deer/elk is spreading rapidly and CWD does transmit to mink, ferret, cattle, and squirrel monkey by intracerebral inoculation. With the known incubation periods in other TSEs, oral transmission studies of CWD may take much longer. Every victim/family of CJD/TSEs should be asked about route and source of this agent. To prolong this will only spread the agent and needlessly expose others. In light of the findings of Asante and Collinge et al, there should be drastic measures to safeguard the medical and surgical arena from sporadic CJDs and all human TSEs. I only ponder how many sporadic CJDs in the USA are type 2 PrPSc?
2 January 2000 British Medical Journal U.S.
Scientist should be concerned with a CJD epidemic in the U.S., as well
15 November 1999 British Medical Journal hvCJD in the USA * BSE in U.S.
BSE TSE PRION USDA OIE NEEDLESS CONFLICT
FRIDAY, JULY 28, 2017
Korean government should suspend the import of U.S. beef by amending terms of trade
kind regards, terry
