The message from Agnes contains these words:
You seem to have misread. Nobody has suggested that "animal products are in the clear".
There is another way to contract nv CJD, via human blood products and contaminated surgical instruments, which may explain why vegetarians also develop the disease.
Janet.
Our mad cow never made it into the food chain, yours did.
That aside. Thanks for the warning about bone meal. What kind of other fertilizer would be good for roses?
take care Liz
Need a good, cheap, knowledge expanding present for a friend?
On Mon, 31 May 2004 01:01:05 +0100, I found this from Janet Baraclough.. :
Thy did not have surgery!!!
On Mon, 31 May 2004 14:25:47 GMT, I found this from escapee :
Been using this for years its really worht using.
Will
Yes, it is. I find it a more available form of phosphate than any other organic form. Many times there is plenty of phosphorous in the soil, but it's locked up and to help with the exchange of that I use epsom salts.
VNeed a good, cheap, knowledge expanding present for a friend?
No doubt *all four* of them also drank water, breathed air, and wore clothes. Thus, you must believe that drinking water, breathing air, and wearing clothes causes BSE.
In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that using bonemeal leads to BSE. The BSE hysteria is a wonderful example of hysteria overtaking science.
billo
Even the FDA has admitted there is no scientific basis for this decision in the US -- it was purely political, in order to "reassure" the population.
In fact, this is one example of the BSE hysteria *costing* lives. The FDA allows fewer and fewer people to donate blood for political reasons while the demand for blood rises, leading to severe blood shortages. BSE has cost lives in the US -- because of the over-reaction to a very small risk.
billo
Your usual netkook thinking at work again. Someone could jump off a cliff & break his spine & cave in his skull, & if it were profitable to convince others to break their spines & skulls, you'd tell 'em the headlong leap was harmless, because all the injured parties were actually maimed & killed because they breathed air & drank water water & wore clothes. Somehow I suspect holding their breath, going thirsty, & being naked all the time, wouldn't change the course of a dease, the cause of which is well established.
-paghat the ratgirl
Please provide a citation of a case of BSE/vCJD transmitted by blood transfusion. Blood transfusion is an inefficient method of transmission in sheep, and as far as I know, there has never been a case in humans. If you have a case, please cite it.
More important, please cite the actual calculated risk (for example, see: Dealler S. Transfus Med. 1996 Sep;6(3):217-22 A matter for debate: the risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans posed by blood transfusion in the UK.)
It's one thing to trumpet a theoretical risk. It's another to look at what the risk actually *is.*
billo
No, paghat, that's what *you* are claiming. Here's a clue again -- association != causation. The "netkook" thinking is to inflate theoretical risks into something they are not. Yet one more clue, Paghat. There's a reason it's not called "beef renderer's disease."
Tell me, Paghat, how many British meat renderers have contracted BSE? After you tell me that, tell me how risky casual contact is. Your "netkook" hysteria is the kind of thing that made people afraid to touch HIV positive patients.
There are risks, but people should find out exactly what they are, not inflate fantastical risks from their ideology.
billo
Comment in: Lancet. 2004 Feb 7;363(9407):411-2. Possible transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by blood transfusion.
Llewelyn CA, Hewitt PE, Knight RS, Amar K, Cousens S, Mackenzie J, Will RG.
National Blood Service, Cambridge Centre, Cambridge CB2 2PT, UK.
BACKGROUND: Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is a novel human prion disease caused by infection with the agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Epidemiological evidence does not suggest that sporadic CJD is transmitted from person to person via blood transfusion, but this evidence may not apply to vCJD. We aimed to identify whether vCJD is transmissible through blood transfusion. METHODS: The national CJD surveillance unit reported all cases of probable or definite vCJD to the UK blood services, which searched for donation records at blood centres and hospitals. Information on named recipients and donors was provided to the surveillance unit to establish if any matches existed between recipients or donors and the database of cases of vCJD. Recipients were also flagged at the UK Office of National Statistics to establish date and cause of death. FINDINGS: 48 individuals were identified as having received a labile blood component from a total of
15 donors who later became vCJD cases and appeared on the surveillance unit's register. One of these recipients was identified as developing symptoms of vCJD 6.5 years after receiving a transfusion of red cells donated by an individual 3.5 years before the donor developed symptoms of vCJD. INTERPRETATION: Our findings raise the possibility that this infection was transfusion transmitted. Infection in the recipient could have been due to past dietary exposure to the BSE agent. However, the age of the patient was well beyond that of most vCJD cases, and the chance of observing a case of vCJD in a recipient in the absence of transfusion transmitted infection is about 1 in 15000 to 1 in 30000.
And here's a description of the possible mechanism of infection:
Leucodepletion for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
St Romaine C, Hazlehurst G, Jewell AP.
School of Life Sciences, Kingston University, Penrhyn Road, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey KT1 2EE, UK.
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) have been recognised around the world for many years. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), one of the human forms of TSE, has been studied widely and thus far has not proved a great threat to human health. The emergence of two new TSEs--bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans in the UK--has caused great concern. BSE has had an economic impact and vCJD is a threat to human health. It has been shown that these two diseases are caused by the same prion agent and are linked. Research indicates that vCJD behaves differently to CJD and there is strong evidence to suggest that vCJD is present in lymphoid tissues and B lymphocytes, which presents a theoretical risk that it may be transmitted by transfusion of blood and blood products. To minimise/prevent this risk, the UK government has decided that plasma should be sourced from abroad and has instructed the National Blood Service to leucodeplete all blood and blood products, at a cost of 70 million pounds per annum, although it is not known if this will remove this risk.
Please provide a citation for your claim that "Even the FDA has admitted there is no scientific basis for this decision in the US -- it was purely political, in order to 'reassure' the population".
You can't actually have a rational conversation with Silly Billo, he's a notorious troll who pokes into issues he knows little about in order to dissimilate & tell whoppers for the fun of getting anyone who actually cares about anything upset. He'll try every trolly trick except honesty to never budge, which over the years has led me to believe he doesn't personally care about a thing. Bare that in mind if you decide to play with him. A loony sod can be loads of fun if you're not taken by surprise how increasingly convoluted & ridiculous he will be whenever anyone condescends to notice he's back in action, & expect reason to have any accumulative effect on the unreasonable.
-paghat the ratgirl
Note the *possible.*
Or not.
Oh.
And what was the chance of observing a case of vCJD in a random transfusion?
That was the question I asked.
I didn't claim that it was impossible. Once again, I am noting that small risks should be identified as small. As noted in the article you quote, this is not, in fact, a proven case. But even if it is, the existence of *one* case after all these years indicates the miniscule risk.
Once again, what *is* the calculated risk? With the presence of one *possible* case, the hysteria that abounds is hardly appropriate.
billo
The fact that this is a "theoretical" risk is openly noted by the FDA -- if you look at its labeling guidance the FDA demands the following warning (see:
WARNING: Because whole blood and blood components are made from human blood, they may carry a risk of transmitting infectious agents, eg viruses, and theoretically the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) agent.?
Note that "theoretically." In other words, they don't know what the risk actually is.
In fact, here's the FDA position as described by the AABB:
(see
Ah yes, a precaution to safeguard against the unproven possibility.
That's rock solid science, yessirree.
As noted by the American Red Cross in
Currently, donations are banned from:
Mad cow disease is a degenerative brain disease in animals. Infected animals act crazy, or "mad," displaying changes in mood such as nervousness or agitation and having difficulty standing up, and usually die within two weeks to six months. Mad cow disease seems to spread to people through eating infected beef. Some animal studies suggest that it may be possible to transmit the disease through blood transfusion, prompting concerns among blood bank and FDA officials about safeguarding the blood supply.
Scientists still don't know a lot about mad cow disease and how it is transmitted, nor do doctors have a test to screen for it.
In humans, mad cow disease is called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or vCJD. Most of the 140 vCJD cases identified so far have occurred in the U.K. The first U.S. case occurred in October 2002, but it is believed the patient contracted it while in the U.K.
Still, there is no evidence to suggest that the disease has spread through blood or blood products. "(But) the concern is that the incubation period can be quite long. Even if the risk is quite small, you might not see it in a hundred or so cases. After the experience in the '80s (with HIV transmission through the blood supply), the public expects us to do too much too soon rather than too little too late," said Peter L. Page, MD, senior medical officer at the American Red Cross.
***** end excerpt *****Yes, Virginia, political. That's what "the public expects us to do too much too soon" means.
The AABB notes the effect this policy of "too much too soon" has on the blood supply. See
The AABB acknowledges the FDA's need to reach a compromise on whether to implement any new donor deferral policies while at the same time carefully balancing patient welfare against all relevant risks and benefits to patient health.
Currently, an individual will be deferred or disqualified as a blood donor if he or she has lived in the United Kingdom for a cumulative period of six months or more from 1980-1996. This policy was established by the FDA in order to prevent a possible but not confirmed risk of transmitting vCJD through blood transfusion.
However, stricter criteria currently are being debated, which could adversely affect the availability of blood. Although it is difficult to measure precisely the effect of a stricter deferral, best estimates suggest that anywhere between five and ten percent of potential blood donors could be eliminated.
"We recognize that a theoretical risk of transmission of TSE through blood transfusion exists," said Klein. "At the same time, availability of blood is also a safety issue and we must balance this risk against the potential risk of TSE transmission through blood."
******** end excerptHere's what are to tell people who are deferred:
IF YOU WERE DEFERRED AS A BLOOD DONOR BECAUSE OF TRAVEL TO THE UNITED KINGDOM?
As noted by Celso Bianco, MD in his review for Hematology:
(see
The theoretical possibility of CJD transmission by transfusion has been examined by other investigators. A study of transfusion histories of
202 definite and probable cases of CJD which had been part of prospective studies performed in England and Wales between 1980-84 and 1990-92, showed that 21 of the patients had received blood transfusions and 29 had donated blood (8). The frequency of blood transfusions or donations did not differ between CJD cases and matched controls, leading the investigators to conclude that the evidence did not suggest that transfusion was a major risk factor for development of CJD (8). No cases of CJD among hemophiliacs have been reported in the medical literature. The Medline database contains 1,485 references on CJD and 6,385 references on hemophilia between January 1976 and October 1994. None of these references links CJD and hemophilia. An extensive review of mortality data performed by L. Schonberger from the CDC did not identify a single CJD death in individuals with a clottOn December 15, 1994, the issue of CJD and transfusion was reviewed by the FDA Blood Products Advisory Committee. After extensive discussion, the Committee recommended that in-date cellular products of blood from donors who later develop CJD should be withdrawn from distribution. In case these products were transfused, the Committee recommended that physicians and recipients be notified. In the case of plasma pooled for further manufacture, the Committee recommended against recall of manufactured products, because of the lack of evidence for transmission. The hemophilia community appeared to be quite dissatisfied with this recommendation, leading the FDA to convene a new Advisory Committee to review the possibility of transmission of CJD by plasma derivatives. The Special Advisory Committee met on June 22,
1995, and recommended that all plasma products containing plasma from individuals who later died of CJD, including albumin, should be withdrawn from the market, despite the lack of evidence for transmissibLookback studies have been organized around blood donors who later developed CJD. These studies involve identification of recipients and review of their health status. So far, review of the cause of death of
35 recipients of these units indicated that none had developed CJD or other central nervous system disease. Once case of potential transmission to a liver transplant recipient who also received transfusions of albumin has recently been reported. One of the albumin donors died three years later from a dementia clinically characterized as CJD (9). Obviously, the liver transplant recipient was exposed to a variety of drugs and biologics, making it difficult to determine the exact source of disease. Unfortunately, because of the very low incidence of CJD and the long incubation period, there will be a long period of time before more definitive answers become available. In the interim, CJD is being approached as a disease which can theoretically be transmitted by blood and blood products.***** end excerpt ****
The risk is small. Period.
billo
Regarding the risk of transmission of BSE/vCJD by blood transfusion in the U.S.:
"These studies provide some assurances for the lack of blood transmission of TSE agents, but the inherent deficiencies of epidemiological approaches, the rarity of the conditions, the difficulty of correctly diagnosing true cases, and the long incubation period prior to case expression make these assurances both tentative and infirm. This is particularly true for assessing the risk of transmitting the vCJD agent through the transfusion of blood or one of its derivatives since this is such a new TSE."
So, what's your answer? ;-)
Ah, yes, the standard approach of someone who doesn't have the facts, start with the personal attacks.
In fact, a 1996 estimate is a good place to start, since the risk has gone down since then. Thus, a 1996 estimate places an *upper bound* on the actual risk. You do understand the concept of upper bound?
Which makes my point. The event is so *rare* that it is difficult to get decent statistics. It's like calculating the probability of being hit by a meteorite.
But, hey. don't let that stop you from engaging in hysteria and in pretending that every little exposure to things like bone meal will end in death. And don't let that stop you from decreasing the blood supply by 10-15% -- which results in *real* death, and *real* disease, and *real* costs. But *those* deaths, and
*those* illnesses and *those* costs are a small price to pay for a theoretical risk that is so miniscule that the *rarity* of it makes calculating the risk difficult.What was that you were saying about a "doofus?" What kind of doofus would choose to have people die because they can't get the right kind of blood in an emergency in order to placate an irrational hysteria?
Well, I'll go with FOOLS like Dr. Bernadette Healy -- who calls the risk "tiny." (
Or FOOLS like Wilson K, Code C, Ricketts MN., Risk of acquiring Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from blood transfusions: systematic review of case-control studies. BMJ. 2000 Jul 1;321(7252):17-9. who conclude: "Case-control studies do not suggest a risk of developing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from blood transfusion. Rather, a trend seems to exist towards a lower frequency of previous blood transfusion in patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease than in controls."
Or FOOLS like Ricketts MN, Brown P. Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy update and implications for blood safety. Clin Lab Med. 2003 Mar;23(1):129-37 who conclude "At this time, the accumulated evidence does not support the implementation of measures targeted against the risk of transfusion transmission of sporadic, familial, or iatrogenic CJD."
Or FOOLS like Brown P. Variant CJD transmission through blood: risks to predictors and "predictees". Transfusion. 2003 Apr;43(4):425-7. who noted: "With the passage of time, systematically collected epidemiologic data substantiated the absence of CJD transmissions in blood recipients and began to weigh more heavily on the perception of risk to humans. It was finally decided that any such risk was negligible, and plasma pools were no longer discarded upon knowledge of a contributing CJD donor (although deferrals designed to eliminate "high-risk" donor categories, such as growth hormone and dura mater recipients, remained in force).. .
1) While it is true that the number of vCJD "carriers" remains unknown, early estimates of as many as 100,000 cases have in recent years shriveled to a maximum of just a few hundred cases, assuming the entirely reasonable estimate of 15 to 20 years as the average incubation period. 1,2 The increasing time period during which the evolution of cases has been observed continues to improve the precision of mathematical modeling and to alleviate concern about the extent of infection of the exposed UK population. 2.2) Although the concentration of prion protein is indisputably higher in the organs of patients with vCJD than sporadic CJD, and probably does indicate a correspondingly higher concentration of infectivity, infectivity is demonstrable in tissues of patients with both diseases,
3,4 and no studies directly comparing infectivity levels have been performed. Furthermore, the presence of infectivity in blood-interactive organs is not equivalent to infectivity in the blood, as is well demonstrated in studies of circulating and splenic lymphocytes in an experimental mouse model of scrapie. 5 3.3) Transmission of disease in experimental models via blood and blood components should not be considered in isolation. The only meaningful approach comes from a consideration of data that compare infectivity in vCJD and BSE experimental models to other experimental disease models or that compare epidemiologic observations in humans. These data are summarized in Table 1 (references 6-9 and unpublished data) and lead to the conclusion that, at the very least, the risk associated with vCJD and BSE is not yet demonstrably worse than the risk from non-vCJD forms of disease, which has been shown to be negligible.
end excerpt.
Considering the millions and millions of blood transfusions that have occurred since the BSE hysteria over a decade ago, and in that time there has only been *one* ***possible*** example, which is actually *more* likely to be diet-related, I'll go along with the FOOLS who use words like "tiny," "negligible," and "minimal."
I would rate it somewhere less than a thousand times less than being hit by lightning and *perhaps* slightly more than being hit by a meteor as I go out to get my mail tomorrow morning.
But hey, all these people are FOOLS, I know, and are slaves to the evil medical-industrial complex. Go with the experts like paghat. Watch out, the sky is falling.
And that's Dr. Oliver, to you.
billo
Nice to see you still minimizing behind the guise of science....
Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets. To plant a pine, one need only own a shovel.
-- Aldo Leopold
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