ii) The Facts about BSE.

I: Theories as to the Origins of the Disease.

There is no agreement as to the cause or the origin of bse.

I.A: Renderers.

The most popular hypothesis is that bse stemmed from scrapie infected feedstuff. However, there is no historical account of how this could have taken place and each commentator puts forward different views. Firstly, some commentators argue that livestock have been fed with Animal remains for decades so it is possible that Cattle could have developed bse from scrapie at any time during this period. It was just chance that it emerged in the early 1980s, "Since the 1920s, meat and bone meal had been derived from sheep carcasses .." It has been suggested that such a practice might have been started by the brutish, "There is the suspicion that it was the UK that initiated the practice of feeding animals with their own products." Forcing herbivores to eat meat was bound to be a disaster since their immune system has no defence against the multitude of diseases in Animal meat. Feeding meat to herbivores may have been dangerous enough but feeding them on meat from Animals which carried a dormant disease was madness. What makes the situation even more tragic is that scrapie is a disease which the country couldn’t be bothered to eradicate, "Scrapie has been eliminated completely from German and New Zealand sheep." It wasn’t even known how prevalent scrapie was, "Surprisingly, the actual prevalence of scrapie is not known in this country - itself a sad indictment of the investment into vetinary research and surveillance."

Secondly, there are those who suggest livestock were first fed with Animal remains in the early 1980s and this instantaneously triggered off the new disease, bse. Some believe it wasn’t so much the conversion of herbivores into carnivores that made the difference but turning Cattle into cannibals.

Thirdly, some commentators suggest that scrapie only infected Cattle when brutish renderers (Cattle-feed manufacturers) started crushing sheep skulls for proteins. Although scrapie exists in various parts of a Sheep’s body .. "the most infectious parts of the sheep are the brain, placenta, spleen, liver and lymph nodes" perhaps the use of Sheep’s brains for Animal feed increased the concentration of scrapie to such a level that it was able to infect Cattle.

Fourthly, protein supplement included not merely scrapie-infected Sheep carcasses but processed chicken litter (or DPM dried poultry manure), a mixture of faeces, feathers and dead Birds. Perhaps scrapie underwent a mutation during its recycling from Sheep to Chickens to Cattle.

Fifthly, other commentators suggest that Cattle became infected by scrapie, or the scrapie prion changed into the bse prion, as a result of changes in the rendering process during which slaughterhouse waste is crushed, cooked and dried, "The source of the infection was from rendering plants and feed producers dating from 1981-2.". However, there are a variety of opinions about what might have been the critical change. There are those who suggest it happened because renderers stopped using a chemical process, "Since the 1920s, meat and bone meal had been derived from sheep carcasses by a process which involved the use of solvent to extract tallow from the carcass. In the early 1980s, the solvent extraction step was excluded from the process and it was this change which correlated with the outbreak of BSE. The solvent extraction was replaced by heat treatment to separate the tallow."; "Chemical solvents used in the (feed) process were phased out, allowing the process to function at lower temperatures." There are those who believe it happened because renderers stopped using one of two high heat treatments. Finally, there are those who argue it happened because renderers stopped using the chemical treatment and the two high temperature heat treatments, "An Observer investigation has pin-pointed the UK company that pioneered the cattle feed process believed to be responsible for the outbreak of BSE in British cattle. Prosper de Mulder, a Yorkshire-based firm, introduced the Carver-Greenfield machinery and processes into Britain from America, and in doing so established a monopoly of the cattle feed trade. A senior executive at the company admitted last week that the processes it had pioneered were now known to be more likely to let infectious material pass into the food chain unscathed than the old established method they replaced. He said the company had been shown a copy of a secret European Commission-British Government report that compared the new system with the previous method - the pressurized batch system - to determine their effectiveness in destroying the scrapie prion. It found that while the batch system ‘reduced infectivity’ the US process had no impact on the infective particles. The company first imported the Carver-Greenfield process to Britain in 1971 .. Revenues soared as demand for its meat and bonemeal increased in the seventies. A Ministry of Agriculture spokesman said the government was satisfied that BSE in cattle originated in diseased meat and bonemeal and two changes in the mid-Seventies were responsible. One was the withdrawal of solvents in the production process, which were used to purge fat from the animal remains following the Flixborough disaster in 1974. The second factor was the introduction of lower-temperature processing such as the Carver-Greenfield system. The higher temperatures used in the previous batch system had some effect in destroying infective particles."

The origins of bse are far from clear and need far more research. It should also be borne in mind that if tse prions such as scrapie are as indestructible as some scientists allege then the change in the feed manufacturing processes mentioned above may be irrelevant since they would not have been sufficient to stop the spread of the disease. It may be that what is critical is the use of Animal feed not the changes in the rendering process.

I.B: Pesticides.

A second hypothesis is that bse was triggered by the use of toxic chemicals, "farmers were forced to use phosnet - a blend of organo-phosphates in the 1980s to combat warble fly infestation. He (mark purdey) claimed that massaging it into a beast’s rump to ensure it penetrated the hide, flesh and muscle and reached deep burrowing larvae meant the organo-phosphate toxins affected the animal’s nervous system." "The hypothesis is that chronic exposure to organo-phosphate pesticides is switching on susceptibility in cattle to the so-called infective 'prion' agent which causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)." "A striking feature of BSE epidemiology in Britain is that the epidemic is at its most intensive in the areas which were designated by MAFF as "warble fly eradication zones" approximately 3 years previously"

I.C: A New Disease.

The third theory, once promoted by the ministry of agriculture, food and fisheries (maff) is that bse was indigenous to Cattle and that the rendering of Animal wastes simply concentrated the disease, "Ministry (of Agriculture) scientists now believe that BSE may be an independent disease which infected cattle long before they were exposed to scrapie. The feeding of diseased brains of previously slaughtered cows would have concentrated the infective agent each time it passed to a new generation." By the time of the government’s announcement about the bse-cjd cases, maff had reverted back to what could be called the conventional view that bse derived from scrapie. John wilesmith of the central veterinary laboratory, who heads maff’s epidemiology team, was so confident about this theory he dismissed need to test it, "It would only confirm what epidemiological study has already shown."

However, the theory that bse is a new disease has been adopted by other scientists. Robert rohwer suggests that bse is .. "a new disease that first arose in a few british cows. Because the cattle carcasses were also rendered into cattle feed, the agent would have been repeatedly recycled through cows, building up for years at levels too low to cause symptoms before emerging as an epidemic."

II: Theories as to the Nature of Bse.

The generic name for brain rotting diseases like bse is transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (tse). It has been known about for two centuries. Sheep and goats have had a form of tse, scrapie, for 200 years.

II.A: The Prion Hypothesis.

It is still not certain whether the infectious agent is a virus or a mutation of a gene, an abnormal protein, "The agent responsible may be quite unlike any other disease causing organism ever recognized by scientists, challenging the text book notion of life."; "The agent (spongy) is so small .. it has never been pictured .. even under an electron microscope."; "Scrapie is not caused by anything remotely similar to other recognized viruses. The scrapie ‘virus’ has never behaved like a virus should behave."

According to harash narang, bse-cjd is a prion, a string of dna, "By 1988, working for the Public Health Laboratory Service in Newcastle, Narang had established that the infectious agent was a virus with a single strand of DNA." It has been suggested that within the scientific community, "The ‘prion hypothesis’ namely that the infectious agent is in fact an abnormal conformation of a naturally occurring protein that transforms the normally harmless prion protein into a protease-resistant dangerous form, is now close to being generally accepted."

II.B: Indestructability.

Whatever bse is, it is believed to be virtually indestructible, "The virus responsible for BSE (and scrapie in sheep) .. cannot be destroyed by the usual methods disinfection. Thus infected tissue has been exposed for example, to autoclaving at very high pressure, treated with the most powerful disinfectants such as chromic acid and even stored in formaldehyde for ten years and it has still been found to transmit disease."; "At the heart of this devastating disease lurks a frightening biological phenomenon. It is virtually indestructible. It is not a bacterium. Its unlike any virus. They call it a prion."

II.C: Movement of the Prion Protein.

It is not known how the prion particle moves from the digestive tract to other parts of the body, "Very little is known about how, in cases of bse, the prion particle moves from the digestive system to the brain. One suggestion is that it travels across the gut, via the lymphatic system, to the spleen, and then via the nerves inervating the spleen to the spinal cord and brain."

II.D: The Physiological Location of Bse.

Bse is a degenerative disease of the brain but it is still not known how widespread the prion agent may be throughout a Cattle’s body. It has just been noted that the prion agent moves from the digestive system to brain so it may well be that it also invades all other parts of the body - unless it has an inbuilt homing device which leads it directly to the brain - which is highly unlikely if the prion agent is a simple strand of dna. As a consequence, "Most emphatically, the disease agent is not just confined to the brain .. we should assume the whole animal is infected."

This is one of the most critical issues in determining the spread of the disease from Cattle to oomans. If it is true, as the government believes, that bse exists only in specified offals then it would be possible to remove these offals to prevent the disease from spreading and the remainder of the Animal could be eaten without a risk to ooman health. If, however, bse exists in all parts of the body then no part could be eaten safely.

III: Human Susceptibility to Tse.

Humans are susceptible to tse diseases. A small number of people contract cjd every year - although the cause of the disease is not known. Humans have also caught another tse disease called kuru. In 1957 the fray tribe in the eastern highlands of papua new guinea started to die in large numbers. A scientific expedition was sent out to diagnoze the disease, find the cause and provide a remedy. It was eventually discovered that the women in the tribe had been eating the brains of dead members of the tribe because males in the tribe denied women a share of the meat caught on hunting expeditions. Altogether some 1400 members of the tribe died from the disease.

Secondly, and as a form of indirect evidence it should be noted that, "Novel human diseases come primarily from transfers from other animals. Small pox was likely a gift from cattle or their relatives, as suggested by the close similarity of the small pox virus to the cowpox virus."

IV: Anomalies.

Despite the increasing validity of the prion hypothesis and the scrapie theory of bse, there are a number of facts which cannot yet be explained.

IV.A: Phantom Bse Cases.

One of the most surprising facts about bse is the number of phantom bse cases. "An ever-increasing number of cows being slaughtered for BSE symptoms are proving 'BSE negative' at post mortems thus throwing into serious doubt the established hypothesis for the cause of the BSE epidemic in Britain."

IV.B: Early Cases of Bse.

"Gareth Roberts, a neuropathologist at SmithKline Beecham, who has investigated prion diseases for a decade, says his research in the country’s largest brain archive revealed unusual cases dating before the BSE epidemic hit cattle."

IV.C: Same Machinery Different Results.

It was pointed out above that prosper de mulder had introduced the carver-greenfield machinery into feed-making in the 1970s. This same machinery was used in many other countries and yet they have not had a bse-outbreak, "A spokesman for the company admitted it was ‘possible’ that its decision to use a lower temperature production system and phase out solvents could be responsible for transmitting BSE to cattle. Similar equipment is used in many countries he added. ‘It could have been a factor in bse, but not the sole factor, because otherwise the situation would have occurred everywhere else."

IV.D: Tests do not show that Scrapie Causes Bse.

It was pointed out above that maff was so confident that bse originated from scrapie infected material that it did not carry out any experiments to verify the hypothesis. However, the test was done in the united states and it was found that scrapie did not cause bse, "Researchers working for the united states department of agriculture have done the scrapie-test, "In 1990, they injected 18 calves with a pooled sample of brain tissue from sheep with scrapie. The cows became sick after 14-18 months. But the animals did not seem to have BSE." As richard lacey has argued, "There is still no evidence that feed is the source of the infection."

V: Spread of the Disease to Other Species.

Bse-infected offal was fed not merely to Cattle but to Pigs, Chickens, Sheep, Pets and zoo Animals.

V.A: Livestock.

V.A a) Calves.

Calves have been infected by their mothers, "The first case of 'mad calf' disease, involving a young diary cow thought to have caught the fatal BSE brain disorder from its mother was disclosed by the Minister of Agriculture. There have been 26 previous cases where calves born to BSE mothers have also died from the disorder. But they were all born before July 1988 when the government banned from cattle feed the scrapie infected sheep offals."

V.A b) Mink.

"The disease in mink is thought to have been acquired accidentally in nature from scrapie in sheep." Ranch Mink have caught the disease after being fed raw Sheep offals.

V.B: Zoo Animals.

V.B a) Antelopes.

The disease has been passed to Antelopes.

V.B b) Infant Antelope.

"Fear that calves are getting mad cow disease from their mothers was heightened yesterday when the first infant antelope born to an infected mother was confirmed to have died from the brain disorder at London zoo."

V.B c) Puma.

"A puma fed on beef at an undisclosed zoo in the north of England has died from "mad cat" disease. The wild cat is the first animal known to have got the disease without first eating meat and bone meal made with the brains of infected cows and sheep. This contrasts with Mr Gummer's testimony two weeks ago to the Commons agricultural select committee when he said the infective agent which causes BSE had been found only in the brains of affected animals."

V.B d) Kudus.

"Five of London Zoo's greater kudus - a type of African antelope - have now been diagnozed as having BSE. The first kudus died in 1989 and was thought to have contracted the disease through feed .. Her daughter was later found to be infected, probably during birth. The latest three cases were all males and none had been fed on ruminant protein."

V.B e) General.

"Not only have cattle been affected but five types of antelope, including a rare Arabian oryx, have also died in British Zoos from brain disease. Ranch mink have contracted a related disease, believed to be a result of their being fed raw sheep offal."

V.C: Domestic Animals.

V.C a): Cats.

Cats have been infected.

V.D: Wildlife.

No Wildlife has yet been found with the disease.

VI: The Future Spread of Bse.

VI.A: Livestock.

Scrapie infected feedstock has been given to a wide range of livestock Animals but only Cattle have displayed symptoms of the disease. This does not mean that other livestock Animals are not susceptible to the disease nor that they are not carrying the disease. It is just that they are being slaughtered before the disease could incubate. If they are carrying the disease they could pass it on to the next generation. Thus killing Animals before the incubation of the disease does not mean that the risks have been reduced.

VI.A a) Sheep.

"Scientists believe the BSE agent may have infected sheep before 1988, when meat and bone meal made from cattle remains were fed to sheep. They fear the BSE agent in sheep may have become endemic but that it remains hidden because it causes similar symptoms to sheep scrapie .."

VI.A b) Pigs.

Pigs do not seem to contract bse through ingesting bse-infected feed but it can be infected experimentally by injecting bse-infected material directly into the brain. However, it is possible that Pigs could carry the disease and even pass it on to other species.

VI.A c) Chickens.

It is not known whether Chickens can contract this disease. Harash narang has pointed out that Chickens have been fed with bse-infected feed and that bse has been found in Chicken manure. Chicken manure has then been recycled as feedstock for other livestock who could incubate the disease.

VI.A d) Conclusion.

"Pigs and poultry could be harbouring BSE and passing it on to humans, says Paul Brown of the United States National Institutes of Health. Until two weeks ago, feed contaminated with scrapie continued to be fed legally to pigs and poultry. "How ironic if 11 million British cattle should be slaughtered in a pre-emptive strike to eliminate CJD, only to find belatedly that the real villains were pigs or chickens.""

VI.B: Wildlife.

There is a distinct possibility that bse could spread to Wildlife. Some pharmers who couldn’t afford to pay for the slaughter and disposal of bse infected Animals (or refused to do so) just dumped their carcasses, "The hills are alive, or rather dead, with thousands of deceased sheep and cows."

VI.C: Mad Fish?

"The agent suspected of causing cjd may have found its way into Britain’s water supply. Government scientists fear that the use of abattoir waste as agricultural fertiliser has contaminated rivers and reservoirs and are to recommend it to be banned." People in wakefield .. "have complained about fields red with cattle blood and abattoir slurry being spilt on roads and running into drains."

VI.D: Limits to the Spread of Bse.

"There are no recorded cases of dogs going down with BSE but there are at least 200 cats who have died from the disease."; "BSE affects rabits but not mice or guinea pigs."

VII: The Increase in the Numbers of Cattle Infected with Bse.

VII.A: Cattle.

VII.A a) Annual Figures.

1985.

First known case.

By 1987 there were 20 known cases.

1988.

"By the summer of 1988, there were 731 reported cases on 590 farms in Britain and the Channel Islands."

February 1990.

It should be pointed out that the government started to pay full compensation for bse infected cattle only in february 1990 so figures for fatalities before this date are likely to be an underestimate. The underestimate could be considerable, "In the month before the announcement the number of suspected cases averaged 278 each week and never rose higher than 316 a week. But in the first week of full compensation the number of suspected cases rose to 469."

December 1990.

"Official figures show that 21,000 cattle have died from BSE."

March 1991.

"Nearly 26,000 cattle have already died from BSE and at least another 26,000 are expected to die this year."

March 1993.

87,000 cattle destroyed.

VII.A b) Running Total.

"Britain 158,882.

N Ireland 1,680

Guernsey 575

Isle of man 405

Jersey 119

Alderney 2

UK Total 161,663."

VII.A c) Number of Pharms affected by Bse.

"More than 31,000 farms hit by bse."; "The database (of the central veterinary laboratory) shows that about a third of the herds with adult breeding cattle have had at least one case of bse. Of these farms with bse, two-third have had more than two cases and less than a third have had more than four cases."; "The latest figures (april 1996) for the incidence of bse show that 11,749 pharms have had one case whilst 593 have had more than 10 cases."

This semingly low level of infection on many pharms may have more to do with the various scams that pharmers have used to cover up the scale of the bse-epidemic e.g. the practice of selling bse-infected Cattle to ‘cow cull dealers’. Richard lacey may well be right, "There is every reason to believe that BSE is now endemic throughout the country."

VII.B: Domestic Cats.

In may 1990 it was announced that a siamese Cat had died from the disease, the first known Cat to have died from bse. Since then, "Cats in Britain are dying of feline spongiform encephalopathy at the rate of about one a month." Richard lacey claimed that about 70 had died so far. It has been suggested that .. "at least 200 cats have died from the disease."

VIII: The Numbers of Infected Cattle Entering the Foodchain.

VIII.A: How many Scrapie-Infected Sheeps’ Brains were used in the Manufacture of Feed?

"Almost half of the 350,000 tonnes of meat and bone meal produced each year in the 1980s was derived from cattle remains. Sheep remains constituted about 15% of the feed."

Not known.

VIII.C: The Number of Cattle Fed on Protein Supplement.

"97% of British cattle have been fed protein pellets containing meat and bone meal derived from sheep."

VIII.D: Estimates of the Total Number of Bse-Infected Cattle having Entered the Foodchain.

"Micro-biologist Stephen Dealler estimated we had eaten 1.5 million BSE-tainted animals."

In april 1996, the dutch government ordered the slaughter of 64,000 Cattle imported from brutland.

There are 30 reported cases of creuzfeldt jakob disease (cjd) each year. Doctors diagnozed 55 new cases in 1995 - 13 more than the previous year, "The number of known cases in humans has doubled in the last five years to 60 a year."

The government set up the cjd surveillance unit in 1990. Despite claims by people who believe their relatives have died from bse, the first time a case of bse-cjd was recognized by the cjd surveillance unit was in the summer of 1995. By the close of 1995 it had found a total of 10 bse-cjd cases. According to one commentator, "The 10 cases all showed first symptoms within the last two years .." However, harash narang claims to have seen examples of this new type of disease in 1990 and reported his discovery to the house of commons select committee.

"Professor Pattison said (of the first 10 victims) the youngest was 18 at the time of death. The others were aged 19, 20 three were 29, two were 30, one was 31 and the last 41."

It is possible that the official level of bse-cjd cases/fatalities is an underestimation of the spread of the disease because some doctors have refused to carry out post-mortems on suspected cjd cases, "Doctors have warned that the number of people with the human form of the disease may be higher than the 30 reported each year because some pathologists, fearing infection, are refusing to carry out post mortems." The underestimation could be quite substantial, "An editorial in the Lancet implies that up to 9,000 people could be dying undetected from a human form of mad cow disease."

"If our worst fears are realized we could virtually lose a generation of people."; "I estimate there will be between 5,000 and 500,000 cases a year by the years 2010-2015."

Stephen Dealler.

Dealler suggests that 10 million people could be affected within 15 years. "At least one beef eater in 10 is expected to develop the human form of "mad cow" disease, unless we prove immune to the infection .. says Dr Stephen Dealler in the British Food Journal."

John Pattison, Chair of the Government’s Spongiform Encepetholgy Advisory Committee (Seac).

On a television programme, richard lacey said there could be up to 500,000 a year and professor pattison responded, "Dr Lacey is quite correct that, at its extreme, it could be a very large epidemic indeed."

XI.E: The Spread of Bse-cjd to Europe.

It has been suggested that some of the countries importing british veal did not know about brutish regulations preventing the spread of bse into the food chain e.g. in 1994 maff extended the specified offal ban (sob) to the thymus and intestines of calves but many foreign abattoirs did not know about these regulations.

XI.E a) Germany.

"German doctors have discovered a second CJD victim, who is showing a similar pattern to the new strain seen in Britain."

XII: The Brutish Cattle Industry.

XII.A: Products.

XII.A a) Condensed Milk Powder.

Every year, 60,000 tonnes of condensed milk powder leaves british farms for foreign markets.

XII.A b) Cream.

70,000 tonnes of cream are produced every year.

XII.A c) Beef.

Total beef sales amount to £4 billion per annum.

XII.A d) By-Products.

d.1 Gelatine.

This comes from either hides or bones (some are derived only from hides). It is found in yoghurt, photographic fim, jellies, mousses, sweets.

XII.A e) Foodstuff containing Cattle Byproducts.

Beef ingedients are used in a wide variety of food products:-

1. Chicken gravy granules.

2. Liquorice Allsorts, fruit pastilles, wine gums and other chewy sweets.

3. Ready made christmas puddings.

4. Pork sausages and pies.

5. Lamb stock granules and chicken casserole cubes.

6. Dumpling mix.

7. Some vitamin pills - like cod liver oil capsules.

8. Many ready-made desserts, such as chocolate mousse.

9. Iced cakes.

10. Parsely stuffing.

XII.A f) Retailers which Used Brutish Beef/Cattle Products.

The following companies used brutish beef before the recent bse-cjd scare:-

"Mcdonald’s says some of its burgers are from the uk." "fast food giant McDonald’s banned british beef yesterday - but only for their customers in Holland. Spokeswoman Yvette Bannier even said the suspect supply could be shipped back to Britain, "maybe McDonald’s in the UK is still open to using this meat." she said."

Van den Berg Foods (Oxo and Batchelor’s soups) uses beef bone stock from the UK."

"Wimpy uses only beef taken from flanks and forequarters of cattle."

Burger king.

Birds eye walls.

Findus.

"Aberdeen steakhouse and wendy hamburgers refused to comment."

There are 90,000 livestock farmers in brutland.

XII.C: Number of Cattle.

11 million Cattle.

XII.D: Employment.

There are 640,000 employed in the industry as pharmers, dairy, industry, abbatoirs, renderers, haulage, etc. etc. "The meat and livestock commission states that in the united kingdom more than 30,000 people are employed in transporting, killing and processing cattle."; "the milk industry produces an annual income of £3.3 billion and provides employment for 41,000 businesses."

XII.E: Abattoirs.

"There are an estimated 450 abattoirs in Britain, employing 15,000 people and processing (sic) 3.3 million cattle a year."

XII.F: Exports.

"About 300,000 and 500,000 sheep are exported from Britain each year."

XIII: The Brutish Animal Exploitation Industry.

XIII.A: Total Employment.

"In 1980, no less than 103,000 people were employed in the manufacture of bacon, meat and fish products, and it has been estimated that in total the British food industry employs over 2 million people with a tenth of the working population either directly or indirectly concerned with the industry."

XIII.B: Sheep Industry.

XIII.B a) Sheep Population.

Britain has a sheep population of more than 20 million, worth £1.2 billion a year to farmers.."

XIII.B a) Sheep Exports.

In the early 1990s, "About 300,000 and 500,000 sheep are exported from Britain each year."