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by Fintan Dunne
Research by Kathy McMahon
Reprinted from eionews.com,
email - news@eionews.com
Pharmaceutical interests in the UK are ignoring new
scientific research that shows the insecticide used in the UK government's
own warble-fly campaigns triggered the UK surge of 'Mad Cow' disease.
Latest experiments by Cambridge University prion
specialist, David R. Brown, have shown that manganese bonds with prions.
Other researchers work shows that prions in the bovine spine -- along which
insecticides are applied -- can be damaged by ICI's Phosmet organophosphate(OP)
insecticide -causing the disease.
British scientists
have led the current theory that an infectious prion in bonemeal fed to
cattle causes bovine spongiform disease (BSE).
Infectious prions are also claimed to cause new variant
Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans -from ingesting beef. But the
infectious prion theory serves to obscure a tragic chemical poisoning
scandal behind the majority of BSE cases.
The new work proves that the prions can bond with
manganese in animal feeds or mineral licks. These manganese prions cause
the neurological degeneration seen in BSE. By a similar process, prions
in human brains are damaged by lice lotions containing organophosphate.
This can result in neurological diseases like CJD and Alzheimers -later
in life.
Many might be surprised to hear that organophosphates
were developed by Nazi chemists during the course World War Two,
as a chemical weapon nerve agent. One formulation of the insecticide -- Maneb,
or Mancozeb -- actually contains manganese in addition to organophosphate.
The marginalized research has devestating financial
implications for ICI. It would provide a firm basis for litigants -who
could include CJD sufferers, farmers across the world and families of
the many British farmers who committed suicide during this BSE debacle.
Phosmet organophosphate has been used at high doses
in British warble fly campaigns. In 1996, ICI subsidiary Zeneca sold the
phosmet patent to a PO Box company in Arizona called Gowan -just one week
before the UK government admitted to a link between BSE and nvCJD.
The politically well-connected British pharmaceuticals
group, ICI has the financial and political clout to block research into
any cause other than the infective model. Indeed no substantive alternative
research has been done. British BSE disease management and research bodies
have taken decisions that do not seem guided by spirited scientific enquiry.
Mysterious prions that jump species is the preferred research arena.
Scientist and organic farmer, Mark Purdey gave evidence
to the UK BSE inquiry, that warble fly insecticide was the cause of the
disease. The scientist wheeled out to rubbish Purdy's evidence -Dr. David
Ray, later turned out to have been receiving funding from the insecticide
manufacturer ICI.
A lobby group that includes Bayer, Monsanto, Novartis,
Pfizer, Roche and Schering-Plough was behind the effort to discredit Purdey.
In December 1999, the same David Ray was appointed to the UK Veterinary
Products Committee (VPC) -a government body that licences animal medicines.
Purdey has been consistently denied even exploratory
funding to extend his privately supported research. Yet the Purdey/Brown
chemical poisoning model matches with the epidermiological spread of CJD
clusters in humans. It also predicts the incidence of BSE-type diseases
in animals. The accepted infectious model fits neither.
The pharmaceutical
industry is all the more determined to hide the chemical source of BSE
and CJD, because a spotlight on chemicals would expose the role the insecticides
in Alzheimer's -- another neurodegenerative disease -- that might lead to
claims which would dwarf those from BSE and CJD litigants. In
fact, two leading brain researchers into CJD and Alzheimers have died
in suspicious circumstances in recent years.
In the United States, the Environmental Protection
Agency is already reviewing Phosmet's safety. The Centers for Disease
Control in the US has recently conducted experiments on mice that confirm
the organophosphate risk.
Not only is the EC beef slaughter campaign futile
-because BSE disease is mostly non-infectious, but unless the underlying
chemical cause is addressed, BSE will simply reappear from chemical causes.
A new warble fly campaign is already underway in France using the organophosphate
insecticide.
Of greater concern is that some lotions for scabies
and head lice are now priming children and adults, for CJD and Alzheimers
in later life.
Bonding The Prion
Cambridge University prion biochemist, David R. Brown
is dismissive of the science behind the infectious model of BSE. He terms
it "a very limited amount of science by a few assumed- reputable
scientists." He insists there is "no evidence an infectious
agent is present in either meat or milk."
"Simple tests on udder walls of cows
-- which could easily detect an infectious prion -- have not been done,
why I don't understand."
A number of researchers have found that organophosphate(OP)
in systemic warble fly insecticide can deform the prion molecule, rendering
it ineffective at buffering free radical effects in the body. Worse still,
the prion is then partial to bond with manganese and become a 'rogue'
prion. A chain reaction whereby rogue prions turn others to rogues also,
can explain the bovine spongiform disease mechanism.
Brown showed how prion protein bonds benignly with
copper, but lethally with manganese. Even natural variations in relative
environmental availability of manganese versus copper can trigger prion
degradation.
The CJD and BSE symptoms mirror 'manganese
madness', an irreversible fatal neuro-psychiatric degenerative
syndrome that plagued manganese miners in the first half of the last century
Shining a Light
on Spongiform
Organic dairy farmer and peer-review-published independent
scientist, Mark Purdey, says the accepted theory of transmission from
BSE-infected cattle to human CJD -by bonemeal or meat, is dependent on
a mutant prion that has never been isolated under the scientific protocol
called Koch's postulates.
Purdey's insistence on sticking to the letter of
this scientific law earned him the condemnation of UK officialdom when
he first mooted his theory. But Purdey pointed to CJD clusters downwind
of a British Phosmet production plant to back his case.
He gave evidence to the UK Government BSE inquiry
and was supported by Conservative MP, Thessa Gorman. His views were discounted,
but his subsequent research and the new Cambridge prion work have confirmed
the alternative theory. Despite this, and the backing of a British peer,
he is denied even exploratory funding.
Speaking from his rural English Somerset farm yesterday
-as plans forge ahead for the European cattle cull, he asks:
"Why does CJD degeneration in humans
begin in the retina, and why are CJD disease clusters found in high altitude
locations?"
The question is rhetorical, and Purdey has an eye-opening
answer. He argues that the prion
molecule has a known natural role as a shock adsorber of damaging energy
from ultraviolet rays and other oxidizing agents.
Once this prion defence system is rendered ineffective
by organophosphates - for example in human head lice lotions, these oxidizing
effects have an unmediated impact on tissues. Eventually, UV radiation
damages the retina and oxidative stress destroys the brain tissues of
CJD patients. This theory would expect to find higher CJD incidence in
mountain regions -where UV radiation levels are elevated. That prediction
holds true.
A similar but accelerated mechanism could be driving
BSE. ICI's Phosmet organophosphate warble fly insecticide -applied on
the backs of animals along the spinal column, similarly degrades prions.
"Systemic versions of the insecticide are designed to make the entire
cow carcass toxic to warble fly," explains Purdey. "Unfortunately
it's toxic to prions too -especially those prions located just millimeters
from the point of application."
The damaged prions are then ready to react with manganese
in animal feed, or manganese sprayed on land or in mineral licks -to become
the driving force of BSE neurodegeneration. Purdey says manganese-tipped
prions set off lethal chain reactions that neurologically burn through
the animal.
Chickens notoriously excrete most of the supplements
fed to them -including manganese. And their manganese-rich excreta have
been blended into cattle feed in the UK. Natural variations in the relative
environmental availability of copper and manganese can also spur prion
degeneration says Purdey.
From this research, any prudent person would conclude
there is a significant risk attaching to the use of organophosphate in
humans. Preparations for head lice and
scabies are known to be overused in practice and might be priming users
for CJ disease.
Purdey believes his bias for field work is the key
to his success. He bemoans the "reductionism" of much lab-centered
science. "I have traveled the world to investigate known clusters
of spongiform disease -something mainstream researchers don't seem remotely
interested in doing."
Since first postulating an environmental -rather
than infectious- theory of spongiform diseases, Purdey has built evidence
from around the world that explains and predicts the incidence in humans
and animals: a cluster of CJD in Slovakia, Eastern Europe -around a manganese
plant; Rocky Mountain deer with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), who were
found to be eating pine needles rich in manganese; the futile slaughter
of sheep in Cyprus -only for BSE to reemerge within years.
"The reappearance of BSE in Cyprus obviously
points to an environmental cause," says Purdey, who is sanguine when
reflecting on the condemnation of him by mainstream scientists.
"I suppose they have mortgages and kids who need
to go to university," he muses. "Privately, some were agreeing
with me, but then they would denounce me publicly. It was quite strange
really."
The Money Trail
Critical scientists like Purdey are unlikely to prevail.
The pharmaceutical industry holds most research purse strings, and would
hardly energetically explore an avenue of research that could expose them
to litigation for causing BSE. The official theory is lavishly funded,
alternative theories rarely, if at all.
There are more explosive implications to his -and
other's latest research. Purdey says similar organophosphate-induced protein
deformation could also underlie Alzheimer's disease. If that were true,
the litigation fallout would destroy some pharmaceutical giants, and a
lot of very influential noses would be out of joint.
Disturbingly, Purdey and other brain researchers
seem to have had an undue share of unfortunate accidents. Purdey's house
was burned down and his lawyer who was working with him on Mad Cow Disease
was driven off the road by another vehicle and subsequently died. The
veterinarian on the case also died in a car crash -locally reported as:
'Mystery Vet Death Riddle.'
Dr. C. Bruton, a CJD specialist -- who had just produced
a paper on a new strain of CJD -- was killed in a car crash before his
work was announced to the public. Purdey speculates that Bruton might
have known more than what was revealed in his last scientific paper.
In 1996, leading Alzheimer's researcher Tsunao Saitoh,
46 and his 13 -year-old daughter were killed in La Jolla, California,
in what a Reuters report described as a "very professionally done"
shooting.
What Alzheimer's Disease, Mad Cow Disease, and CJ
Disease have in common, is abnormal brain proteins and a putative link
to organophosphates. Even Gulf War syndrome among returning veterans has
been attributed, in part to the insecticide. But the sidelined scientists'
suspicions are still largely ignored.
In their favour at the moment, is a growing unease
on the part of the public. As BSE forges on and Governments panic, Science
may be out to lunch on BSE, compromised by bovine spongythinking myopathy.
Do Not Use Systemic
Organophosphate Insecticides
Do NOT treat children with OP head lice products
- they may cause CJD and Alzheimer's
Do NOT treat your pets with OP anti-flea products
Do NOT treat cattle or
animals with OP products - they may cause BSE
Do NOT give manganese
to cattle previously dosed with a systemic OP
The relative availability
of the metals copper and manganese in you local environment is a major
factor in BSE & CJD
Useful Links
EPA
on Phosmet
BSE & CJD Researchers
Insecticides
Classification
US Gov Pesticide resources
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