|
Mad Cow Disease: The Chemical Industry Plays Dirty
BY
DR. PAUL KAIL
ACTIVISM | 01.17.01
BSE
(Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), or Mad Cow Disease, and its human
form, nvCJD (New Variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease), are incurable brain
disorders. Holes appear in victims' brains, then they become demented and
die. The diseases are not caused by a virus or a bacterium, but by a
mysterious type of twisted protein, known as a "prion". The
prion can propagate itself by causing other proteins to twist into the
same shape. Prions can be passed on by eating the flesh of another
animal, and are resistant to cooking and digestion.
A theory about how
prions are formed suggests that organophosphate pesticides could be
partly to blame. Two people have already died defending this theory, apparently
at the hands of professional assassins working either for the British
government or the chemical industry. So the theory needs to be taken
seriously.
BSE first appeared
in the UK in 1985. Since then, the disease has affected half of the cow
herds in the country. New Variant CJD also first appeared in the UK, ten
years later: to date, around 90 people have died from it. Both BSE and
CDJ are beginning to spread throughout the rest of Europe; today, 30
European countries have had exports of their cattle banned. The diseases
have the potential to destroy the entire European cattle industry, and
kill thousands of people. The death toll from nvCJD is increasing by 35%
per year, and the disease has a gestation period of twenty years. Some
projections suggest that hundreds of thousands of people could eventually
die from it.
Given the huge
amount at stake, one might expect that any credible theory would be
welcomed. Yet Mark Purdey, a British farmer from Somerset, has suffered
constant harassment and has had to support his research from his own
pocket. Purdey has a theory which might explain the mystery of why BSE
and new variant nvCJD started in the UK, and why they are so much more
serious there. However, since he went public with his ideas, some rather
unfortunate things have happened:
1.
Both
his vet and the lawyer defending his case died in suspicious road
accidents. His second lawyer also had a car crash, but survived.
2.
When
an article about his work appeared in the "Independent", a
national British newspaper, his telephone lines were cut. He was
therefore unable to take follow up calls from other papers and television
stations.
3.
His
farm house was burnt down just before he was about to move in.
4.
His
science library was destroyed by a collapsing barn.
5.
When
he travels around the country to talk about his theory, he is constantly
trailed.
Purdey believes that the root cause of BSE is an
imbalance of magnesium and copper, exacerbated, in the case of the UK, by
the use of a highly toxic pesticide known as phosmet. Phosphet is an
organophosphate nerve toxin, originally developed by the Nazis. It is
also related to the drug Thalidamide, which causes birth defects.
Phosmet is made by
Zeneca, a subdivision of the British chemical giant ICI. A week after the
British government first announced the link between BSE and nvCJD, Zeneca
sold the patent for phosmet to a PO Box company in Arizona, apparently to
avoid potential legal action.
The theory started
when Purdey noticed that his cows, unlike those of his neighbours, were
not getting BSE. Cows often suffer from a parasitic infection known as
warble fly. Since Purdey is an organic farmer, he treated his herd with
derris root powder, a natural remedy. Other farmers were using phosmet,
which was later made compulsory throughout the UK. When Purdey bought an
infected cow from another herd, he was able to reduce the symptoms of BSE
by injecting oxime, which is an antidote to pesticide poisoning. However,
officials from MAFF (the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food)
turned up to kill the cow before the experiment could be completed.
As well as the link
to phosmet use, Purdey discovered that brain diseases such as BSE and
nvCJD appear in clusters in many places around the world. The link seems
to be a lack of copper and an excess of manganese.
For example, in some
areas of Colorado and Wyoming, 4-6% of deer and elk suffer from CWD
(Chronic Wasting Disease), which is related to nvCJD. These animals live
in areas where the soils are very high in manganese. In Slovakia, where
the incidence of nvCJD is a thousand times higher than normal, most of
the victims live near a glass making plant (where manganese is used) or
else down-wind of one of two large ferro-manganese factories.
In the UK, two
factors have increased the amount of manganese which cows consume. Until
1988, cows were fed chicken manure. The chicken had been fed manganese to
strengthen their eggs, but 98% of it ended up in the manure. In addition,
a fungicide rich in manganese was used on crops at that time.
According to Purdey,
a lack of copper and an excess of manganese causes proteins in the
nervous system of foetal cattle to change into the abnormal prion forms
found in BSE and nvCJD. Phosmet facilitates this process by binding to
copper, and therefore reducing the amount available to brain tissues.
Recently, Dr David
Brown, a chemist at Cambridge University, showed that manganese can
replace copper in brain proteins, thereby transforming them into prions.
Dr Brown lost his funding, and was not able to continue the research.
The BSE crisis
started in the UK, and that country still has the highest rate of the
disease. Purdey believes that this was because the British government was
the only one to enforce systemic phosmet at such a high dose. Phosmet is
used elsewhere, but either on a voluntary basis, or at a much lower dose,
or non-systemically.
However, there is a
long lag between the peak of phosmet use and the incidence of BSE. Purdey
says that this is for two reasons. First, cows are most susceptible to
phosmet damage when they are in the womb. Second, phosmet has to reach a
certain concentration in the food-chain before it has an effect.
Quite apart from the
direct attacks on Mr Purdey, the chemical industry have launched a media
campaign to discredit his research. Although MAFF claims that any
credible theories for BSE will receive funding, Purdey has received
nothing.
The effort that the
chemical industry has apparently gone to to discredit Mark Purdey mirrors
the experiences of Alice Stewart, the scientist who first showed the link
between radiation and cancer. Scientists who supported her had their cars
rammed. Maybe in this case as well, the truth will come out in the end.
Dr.
Paul Kail has a Ph.D. in nueroscience from Cambridge University and is
founder and Director of the Animal Consciousness Foundation, which can be
reached via www.animals.org.
|
