12th case of mad cow confirmed in Japan

[Maciamo]

Japan Times : 12th case of mad cow confirmed

Japan has confirmed its 12th case of mad cow disease, an official said Monday.
It is the third case of the brain-wasting illness this year.

The 5-year-old dairy cow tested positive for the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, on Friday at a slaughterhouse in Shisui, Kumamoto Prefecture, prefectural spokesman Toshinori Takano said.

The animal's meat and organs had not been released on the market, and its carcass will be incinerated, he said.

Japan's first case of mad cow disease, in September 2001, was the first case outside of Europe, where the disease devastated cattle farms.
...
Japan finds it difficult to accept a U.S. demand for excluding cattle aged 24 months or younger from testing for mad cow disease, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said Monday.
The U.S. demand is less stringent than a recommendation made by Japan's Food Safety Commission that calls on the government to end the current blanket testing and exempt beef cattle aged 20 months or younger.

The top government spokesman told a news conference that Japan should take into account that the brain-wasting disease was detected in cows aged 21 months and 23 months in Japan.

I saw a TV programme on NHK that explained that cows infected by BSE cannot be detected by tests during the virus' incubation period. That period is from about 2 to 6 years for cows (for humans 5 to 20 years, I think). As a result, all young cows or calves tested cannot be diagnosed as having BSE, making all claim of safety derisory.

This cow was 5 years old, which explains the virus could be found. But the majority of the beef we eat is from younger cows. As soon as the calves turns adult (6 months, 1 year ?), they are put down to eat. Older cows are usually those kept for milk, and once they get too old to be productive, they also end up in our plates.

But not being able to detect the disease does not mean it isn't there and can't be transmitted to humans. BSE is the bovine form of the virus known as Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease for humans. The virus is slightly different but can change inside the body of somebody eating contaminated beef, in the same way as Africans eating apes first got HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which mutated from the chimpanzee's virus, known as SIV (Simian Immunodeficiency Virus).

Although the chances of the BSE virus mutating to the human form are low (maybe 1%), there is always a risk. The more beef products we consume (especially offals) and the higher the risk of transmission.

I also presume that any country having BSE cases, especially in such various locations as was the case in Japan (Hokkaido, Chiba, Kyushu...), have very high probabilities of widespread contamination. This is because BSE originates from animal flours given to the cows as food, and they are usually the same nationwide (maybe not in all farms, but in about every regions). As it is extremely difficult to detect BSE during the incumbation period, even with blood tests and the highest technologies (the same way as HIV doesn't show up in bloodtests for the first 6 months after contamination),

I seriously oubt the validity of the tests themselves, and wouldn't trust any (financially motivated) government on this. It is very possible that governments worldwide are trying to protect their cattle owners by lying to the public about the real danger of BSE. Or people with the real authority just can't understand what scientists tell them, or like in Japan, people just don't want to stop eating beef, even if they know there is a high risk of dying from it in 10 or 20 years from now.

[Uncle Frank]

a former member from N.Y. caught mad cow disease from just posting to JREF! The first symptom to show was his 2 balls turned red. Soon his posts became erratic and the problem progressed to the point we thought he had rabies. He even became confused about his name and used aliases. We locked him out to prevent the problem from spreading to others, but sadly , it was too late for a few. We hope the danger is out of control, but for your own safety, we recomend checking your balls for redness for the next few weeks to be sure you're safe!

Uncle Frank

[gakami]

It doesn't sound like you have any idea what you're talking about ..

By the way, it isn't a "virus".

Mad Cow Disease aka Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease are all a type of disease called "prion disease". The infectious agent in prion disease is actually a type of molecule from a family of proteins known as PrP (PRion Protein).

[PaulTB]

It doesn't sound like you have any idea what you're talking about ..

Certainly it doesn't make sense unless you specify which testing methods are being talked about. An informative (but with horrible font) post can be found here.

http://www.vegsource.com/talk/madcow...ges/92946.html

[gakami]

It's not really a matter of "which" testing method, it's more about testing requirements. At the moment the standard practice is to test those animals that begin to show symptoms only. Which means any animals who may harbour the disease which haven't had onset of symptoms aren't tested and are still probably passing through the system.

[PaulTB]

At the moment the standard practice is to test those animals that begin to show symptoms only.

http://www.rr-asia.oie.int/topics/detail011_02.html

"The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has innovated on the then BSE testing of all carcasses of cattle slaughtered on or after 18 October 2001. "

From the same page Until 774,733 samples were tested by 8 June 2002.

That doesn't seem like 'animals that begin to show symptoms only'. Nor does the reporting of 3,159,408 animals tested as of May 8, 2004 [presumably mostly/all since 18 October 2001.]

[Maciamo]

Thanks for the info, Gakami and Paul.

I admit not being a neuroscientist or doctor, so I searched a bit the web to learn more about this dreadful disease. Here is what I found about prion protein :

The Prion protein (PrP) has become famous because recent research has confirmed an earlier hypothesis that conformationally abnormal forms of this membrane protein (named PrPsc), which is normally found on the surface of neurons (as PrPc), are the infectious particles in a disease group found in humans and animals called spongiform encephalopathies (the name of this disease group is due to the post mortem appearance of the brain with large vacuoles in the cortex and cerebellum). The mutations found in the PrP gene in the familial forms of these diseases also strongly suggest that the encoded protein plays a crucial role in the pathogenesis of these disorders. The discovery that proteins alone can transmit an infectious disease has come as a considerable surprise to the scientific community, and the mechanisms underlying the propagation of the infectious proteins and their pathogenic effects remain a matter of hot debate.

And here is more about the disease itself :

In humans: Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease, CJD; Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome, GSS; Fatal familial Insomnia, FFI; Kuru, and Alpers syndrome (collectively called prion diseases or spongiform encephalopathies). All familial inherited prion diseases are caused by mutations in the PRNP gene. According to the protein-only hypothesis of spongiform encephalopathies, PrPSc (the abnormal one) induces PrPC (the normal counterpart) to change into PrPSc, which could then itself act as the transmissible agent causing further conversion of PrPC to PrPSc. Prions thus multiply in an incredible way; they convert normal protein molecules into dangerous ones simply by inducing the benign molecules to change their shape! Accumulation of PrPSc may then somehow lead to the observed pathology (neuronal loss, astrocytic gliosis and spongiform change), although the details of these effects remain to be established. PrP fragments accumulate as plaques in the brains of some patients that look similar to the plaques of Alzheimer's disease, although their composition is different. The PrP plaques are a useful sign of prion infection, but they seem not to be a major cause of impairment. In many people and animals with prion disease, the plaques do not arise at all.

=> Sources

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It is interesting to see that amomg the cases of BSE found in Japan (first 4 listed in Paul's link), the cows were all over 5 years old. That seems to confirm that it is difficult to detect the disease among younger cows, during the incubation period. This is what scares me the most when I hear the authorities saying that "it is safe because the test were negative" (obvious nonsense).

[PaulTB]

It is interesting to see that amomg the cases of BSE found in Japan (first 4 listed in Paul's link), the cows were all over 5 years old.

All 12 or the first 4 listed in my link?

That seems to confirm that it is difficult to detect the disease among younger cows,

Not really. You could equally take it that cows were more likely to have been exposed further back. It is correct that tests can be are less reliable when the cows haven't had time for the disease to progress for long but just exactly how much that is true depends on which tests are being talked about.

during the incubation period. This is what scares me the most when I hear the authorities saying that "it is safe because the test were negative" (obvious nonsense).

It's 'safe' (on a purely statistical basis) because vCJD turned out to be far less easy to get than feared. The long (and unknown) period before it takes effect made it a great scare target but it now seems fairly clearly to have peaked in the country where the problem first surfaced.

http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/figures.htm

A country where Mad Cow disease was, and is, much more rampant that it is now in Japan - however poor the tests.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/bse/.../overview.html

Oh and this link
http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/conte...tract/32/5/784
suggests that the best fit for incubation period is 11 years. With the peak BSE cases in the UK occurring at 1992/1993
http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/bse/...aphs/repts.pdf
this would be consistent with peak vCJD cases in 2003/2004.

[Maciamo]

Little update. It's funny that all the Japanese I know are saying that Japanese beef is safe and that the BSE issue has been tackled by the government since 2001 and that there is no problem anymore. How does that explain this :
Yomiuri : 15th case of BSE confirmed in Hokkaido

[BigBossIchi]

And they banned Canadian beef in the process. I think beef all together is to dangerous to consume. Humans were just not meant to ingest this stuff at all.

[bossel]

Little update. It's funny that all the Japanese I know are saying that Japanese beef is safe and that the BSE issue has been tackled by the government since 2001 and that there is no problem anymore. How does that explain this :
Yomiuri : 15th case of BSE confirmed in Hokkaido

I don't think that a 15th case as such (or the public perception) is really worrying. What is kind of worrying is that the involved farmer waited until the cow couldn't stand up anymore before he did anything (if he informed the authorities at all). Usually the signs of BSE are visible much earlier & he should have noticed before that something's wrong. Either the government didn't educate the farmers properly or this guy wanted to hide the disease.

BTW, BigBossIchi:
Humans are not really made for going upright, either. Should we ban walking erect from now on?

[Maciamo]

I don't think that a 15th case as such (or the public perception) is really worrying. What is kind of worrying is that the involved farmer waited until the cow couldn't stand up anymore before he did anything (if he informed the authorities at all). Usually the signs of BSE are visible much earlier & he should have noticed before that something's wrong. Either the government didn't educate the farmers properly or this guy wanted to hide the disease.

That's a very good point. Considering that I have seen Tv programmes (on NHK) explaining in detail about BSE, the blame is probably more on the farmer's side here. What worries me is that if 99% of the Japanese population doesn't really care about BSE and even laugh at people who think twice about eating beef (as I have experienced). They are basically irresponsible by trying to conceal the reality from themselves and naively belive that "Japanese beef is safe - because it's Japanese, and Japanese do not get such diseases". The same happens with AIDS. Amost all Japanese still think it's a foreign disease and that it is safe to have unprotected sex with 5 partners at the same time (see Promiscous youth and AIDS ).

In such circumstances, how could a farmer, with strong financial interests in not having his cow killed, even consider reporting a BSE case. Either the guy was not concerned enough to pay attention to early BSE signs, or worse, rejected the responsibility of reporting it to the authorities (which would amount to a criminal act - but fits very well in the naive and non-responsible attitude of the Japanese).

I don't trust American beef either, but in that case it is clearly because the government is trying to protect its farmers' interests.

All in all, I just avoid eating beef, as there could be BSE in any country, even when the government or the farmers do all they can to avoid it (not all people are perfect, and some will always put their own business interests first, whatever the country). Even if Australian beef was safe, I can't trust the labelling, after some Japanese companies intentionally mislabeled Japanese beef (nationwide) as Australian beef just after the first few BSE cases in Japan. These people should go to jail. But in Japan, nothing happens. They are free and will probably try even more subversive things the next time. I really can't think Japanese beef is safe when people are irresponsible enough to cheat people on the origin of the meet.

[Iknes]

That is sounding really great basically its about how things are and especially when it comes to bothering this all it has a different value mate.
I am pretty sure that it is gonna do well.