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Some Cases of Mad Cow Disease May Be From Gene Mutation
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by Barbara McPherson | September 14, 2008 at 03:36 pm
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The outbreak of mad cow disease in the UK during the '80s changed the way that cattle are tracked and shipped. We no longer have available many organ meats previously available, notably brains. Some areas ban T-bone steaks or bones with spinal cord in them. It was found that in some cases the mad cow, when eaten, could spread to the consumer. The brain then develops holes in it. There is no treatment and no cure.
The Canadian beef industry was rocked a few years ago with the word that a dairy cow had developed mad cow or bovine spongiform encephalitis. Exports were immediately cut off resulting in many ranchers going out of business. It now appears that some spontaneous mutations may pave the way for the formation of proteins known as prions.
The mutation was found in a cow from Alabama that tested positive in 2006 for bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, also called mad cow disease. The animal passed along the mutation to its heifer.
In Friday's issue of the journal PloS Pathogens, researchers said the 10-year-old cow had an atypical form of BSE with the same type of prion protein gene mutation as human patients with the genetic form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Prions are infectious agents that cause diseases like CJD. Humans can also contract CJD from eating products contaminated with BSE, a form known as variant CJD.
"Our findings that there is a genetic component to BSE are significant because they tell you we can have this disease everywhere in the world, even in so-called BSE-free countries," said study author Juergen Richt, a professor of diagnostic medicine and pathobiology at Kansas State University's veterinary college.
The mutation is rare and affects fewer than one in 2,000 cattle, based on a recent epidemiological study.
The advantage of knowing BSE has a genetic component is that it opens the possibility of stamping out the disease through selective breeding and culling of genetically affected animals, said the researchers, who are working on developing such a test.
An outbreak of BSE devastated British dairy herds in the 1980s, forcing millions of animals to be culled. The source has never been identified, but most experts believe cattle feed contaminated with remains of sheep infected with a similar disease called scrapie may be to blame.
The findings may lend support for the hypothesis that BSE in cattle may be traced to feed contaminated with remains from cattle or humans scavenged from the Ganges River in India, Richt and co-author Mark Hall of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said.
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at 19:45 on September 15th, 2008
Excellent point. This disease developed and spread due to a special ingredient in cattle feed: other cattle. Cattle body parts deemed not fit for human consumption were ground up and fed back to cattle in their feed, forcing them to cannibalize. This disease is spread when cattle eat parts of ground up cattle brain and spinal column tissue. Why is left over dead cow from the slaughterhouse put back into the feed for live cows? So ranchers can save a few bucks. And so that people who still go to McDonalds can buy something on a 99 cent menu instead of a $1.25 menu. It's all about money.