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So here’s another thought on the origins of the whole mad cow thing:

BSE may have started in cattle because they ate imported animal feed that included infected human remains from Hindu funeral ceremonies in India, a controversial new theory on the origin of the disease suggested last night.

Obviously there’s lots of controversy regarding the idea, and the origins may well never be known. But speculation is inherently interesting.

(Guardian: “Theory ties vCJD to Indian funerals,” by James Meikle and Randeep Ramesh [September 2, 2005])

The New Scientist Special Report on BSE and vCJD. Updated with the latest articles and info. Also has a timeline, web links (as opposed to…?), and briefing notes.

The United States has just had its first official case of home-grown mad cow disease. “Just had” in this case corresponding to seven months ago but, well, you know.

While it took seven months from the first suspicion of this lone mad cow to positively identify its condition, at least it wasn’t entered into the nation’s food supply.

US Ag. Secretary Mike Johanns sez:

“The fact that this animal was blocked from entering the food supply tells us that our safeguards are working exactly as they should.”

In reality, we know it proves virtually nothing. By analogy, a security system that prevents one robber from looting a museum is working to perfection. Which would be the case if only one attempt was made to rob the museum, but not if multiple attempts were made by multiple robbers. Could it be working to perfection? Sure. Could it be working to abomination? Sure.

The fact of Johanns making claim of the US Mad Cow net’s working to perfection does nothing but make me suspicious, not of ill-will so much as of incompetence.

Stay tuned.

(AP: “Feds: Safeguards Working Amid Mad Cow Case,” by Libby Quaid [June 25, 2005])

• New Scientist looks at trials of a drug thought to hold potential in treating vCJD. The trial will look at an anti-malarial drug (of all things) that seems to have some promise in the whole mad cow arena.
• The Guardian provides a handy-dandy Q&A format article on BSE/vCJD—giving, among other things, a straightforward, helpful explanation of the CJDs (Sporadic, Variant, etc.). Curiously, the article does not mention the “mad cow” appellation, assuming—probably—that by now people have heard the acronym BSE knocked around often enough to know it’s mad cow disease.

(New Scientist: “Trial of treatments for vCJD to launch,” by Andy Coghlan [August 5, 2004]; Guardian: “vCJD,” by James Meikle [August 6, 2004])

I’m always interested in new developments in the whole mad cow thing, so imagine my delight when I discovered that the New York Times has a whole section dedicated to BSE articles! Wow!

(For the non-registration-inclined, here’s a no-reg link to the latest NYT mad cow article.)

(via NYT: “Study Lends Support to Mad Cow Theory,” by Sandra Blakesless [July 30, 2004] - w/ many thanks to the NYT Links Generator)

• Into Thin Air. It makes a nice title for a book about a climbing disaster on Mt. Everest, sure. It’s also good science, apparently. A physicist (of all people) thinks that what happened is, the atmospheric pressure changed, whisking oxygen away from the mountaintop and effectively making the top of Mt. Everest almost 1/3 of a mile higher. Not literally, of course, but in terms of oxygen available. Neato. (Independent / NZ Herald: “Everest climbers died because sky fell below them says scientist” by Charles Arthur [May 27, 2004])
• Who Needs Sex is admittedly a pretty lame title for an article about gene transfer, but like they say, don’t judge an article by its author’s willingness to use the drawing power of the word sex. Surprisingly straightforward and clear, “WNS?” discusses the various curiosities of how particular snippets of DNA (etc. etc.) got where they are today. Which by itself doesn’t sound all that exciting, so let me use one of the more extreme (potential) scenarios from the article:
  

  “Bacteria are, after all, responsible for decay, the system by which all flesh is ultimately converted to compost. Just by consuming animals, bacteria may pick up genes from those animals. And if, say, a vulture dines on that rotting flesh, those bacteria may take up residence in the bird and possibly even pass a gene from the dinner to the diner.” [emphasis added]

  Interesting stuff.
  (Science for People: “Who Needs Sex?” by Scott Anderson [May 20, 2004])

• Deadly Diseases? Tell someone who cares. Not too surprisingly, more research resources are dedicated to the conditions afflicting affluent nations than to the more common (and more deadly in terms of global deaths) diseases. This article focuses primarily on medical journals, and how the proportion of articles published on various topics reflects this disconnect, but it’s still worth a look. (Globe and Mail / Canadian Press: “Researchers neglect deadliest diseases” by Helen Branswell [May 25, 2004])
• For people whose password is “password.” During the height of the Cold War, the “secret” unlock code to all the big ol’ Minuteman nuclear missles pointed at the USSR was 00000000. Honest. Though on the bright side, if we were able to survive years of trigger-hair nuclear missiles with first-grade unlock codes, maybe there’s some hope we’ll survive a little while longer. (The Nation / Daily Outrage: “00000000″ by Matt Bivens [May 28, 2004])
• One-way Dialogue.

  Farmer: I’d like to test my steer for mad cow disease.
  Gov’t: No.
  Farmer: I’ll even pay for the tests.
  Gov’t: No. It has to be tested by our labs.
  Farmer: I’ll send it to you.
  Gov’t: No.
  Farmer: I’ll pay to send it to you.
  Gov’t: No.

  Admittedly, this isn’t an actual dialogue. But it might as well be. It’d be funny if only it weren’t so sad. (LA Times/BoGlo: “Some beef plants want BSE testing” by Stephanie Simon [May 30, 2004])

• U.S. plans to test more thoroughly for BSE (mad cow disease), but ignores recommendations that might help to prevent it. Now 500,000 cattle will be tested instead of 40,000, which was the USDA’s previous plan—but cattle will continue to be fed chicken and ruminant remains, as well as “high risk cattle tissue,” i.e., cow brains. Go figure. (NewScientist, March 15)
• “Britain’s ability to cope with a major terrorist strike was called into question today, as the commissioner of the Metropolitan police warned that such an attack was “inevitable” despite the best efforts of the security services.” (Guardian, March 16)
• So we all know that, for instance, natural disasters increase a country’s GDP, right? That the economic muscle required to recover from an earthquake, for instance, makes the GDP look like it’s growing. But did you know that the Enron scandal also contributed to the GDP to the tune of $1 billion or so? A good story on the absurdity that is the GDP. (Alternet, March 16)
• “‘He was just a rich kid who had no respect for other people’s possessions,’ said Mary Smith, whose family found damaged walls, broken furnishings and a chandelier destroyed after Bush left the house. A bill sent to collect the damages went unpaid, the family said.” (Birminham News, February 28, via Atrios)
• Tom Tomorrow prints a very interesting e-mail from someone who’s maybe a little better positioned to comment on the Spanish tragedy than American news pundits. Namely, someone who lives there. It’s long, but very interesting. (This Modern World, March 16)

Reuters, February 17, 2004:

“Italian researchers said on Tuesday they had found a new variation of mad cow disease…

…

“They [infected cow's brains] look much more like the brains of people with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD — not the kind that people catch from eating infected beef, but the kind that arises mysteriously in about one in a million people worldwide.

“More worrying, although the cattle were old, they had no visible symptoms of BSE and were only diagnosed after routine slaughter. … ‘It’s probably another ‘don’t worry’ observation but it does deserve some study,’ Brown said in a telephone interview. ‘There is no reason to suppose it might show up in human beings in some weird form.’”

A brief history of that devilish cow-spawned disease, gleaned from Harpers (the history gleaned from Harpers, that is—not the disease). Enjoy!

(note: dates refer to week, and not necessarily the exact day of events)

2000

Aug 1: British Health Dept Bulletin states that 500,000 people could die from BSE by 2030. Happy day.

Nov 28: Spain and Germany both discover their first cases of mad cow disease.

2001

Jan 16: US agriculture officials continue to insist that Americans are at little risk. Little risk! Little risk!

Jan 23: Italy discovers first mad cow.

Feb 27: Italy confirms its 3rd case of BSE; Sweden “insists on purity of its herds”; Russia’s veterinarian blames mad cow on Jews.

June 12: Mad cow rears its ugly head in the Czech Republic.

July 10: Greece finds a mad cow.

2002

May 21: Failing diagnosis, a vet in Japan does herself in: “I’m so sorry for my unforgivable fault as a veterinarian”

June 11: Israel confirms first case

Aug 13: A canadian death.

Oct 22: Woman in Florida dies… infected in England? Or…

2003

Apr 8: Three deer hunters—two of them friends—die of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human variant of mad-cow); CDC declines to investigate whether disease comes from infected deer meat, because there’s no evidence the hunters ate the infected meat. How simple!

Dec 24: Happy holidays: Mad Cow Disease discovered in U.S.

Dec 25: The Nobel laureate who discovered prions (the rogue proteins that cause mad cow disease) contradicts claims of gov’t officials, and thinks the disease is already widespread. His words: “They treat the disease as if it were an infection that you can contain by quarantining animals on farms. It’s as though my work of the last 20 years did not exist.”

Dec 27: President continues to eat Beef. Yum. Officials hope to blame Canada.

2004

???

Fiction (from a story):

…Jane Doe lived on North Street Drive when the CJD first would have manifested itself… Unlike its ‘partner-in-crime’ vCJD, Jane Doe’s form is not linked in any way to contaminated beef. Said Tom Hahn, of the National Cattleman’s Beef Association, “people are scared of the littlest things these days. They hear one mention of this ‘mad cow disease’ thingy and they assume the whole U.S. is infected. Well, that’s not true. I think that… the facts of Jane Doe’s case prove that beef is indeed very safe to eat-and indeed, a necessary part of a healthy diet. While it doesn’t prove anything, I think it’s telling that Jane Doe was never known to eat beef. Maybe it was the lack of beef in her diet that brought this on, and maybe it wasn’t. Me, I certainly wouldn’t want to take the chance.” …

Not Fiction (from the New York Times “First US Case of Mad Cow Reported”):

“Only the brain, spinal cord and related parts can spread the disease to humans, [agriculture secretary] Veneman said, and she added that she intended to serve beef to her family at Christmas.” (New York Times)

I’m tingling all over. I can’t wait to find out if Santa filled my Christmas stocking with steak, just like I’d asked. I can only hope. Tomorrow I guess I’ll find out.

Please, Santa, please.