explosive paper on CWD under-diagnosis still under wraps

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Subj: explosive paper on CWD under-diagnosis still under wraps

Date: 4/23/99 6:45:36 PM Central Daylight Time

From: tom@... (tom)

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People back East faxed me this; it is from a Freedom of Information Act

filing by the Center for Food Safety late in the autumn of 1998.

The first item, project number 3625-32000-026-00D log number 95517, is from

Randall Cutlip's group at ARS, USDA, Ames, Iowa and is dated 19 Jan 98.

Janice is given as the scientitst to contact, or fax

-8458. It consists of a summary and abstract of a paper that had already

received four levels of approval by the USDA hierarchy (but still lacked NPS

ADA and OCI Directer signatures).

The paper has not appeared 16 months later -- it contains some very bad news

indeed.

They report on testing a captive herd of 17 elk that had previously

experienced cases of CWD. [This is identifiable as the South Dakota index

game farm herd based on a previously reported slaughtered herd.]

Of the 17 animals, only 2 had developed clinical signs. These, plus 1

non-clinical animal were definitely diagnosed as positive by histopathology.

However 10 elk in total (including these 3) were diagnosed by IHC, so 7 new

ones were found. thus 59% of the herd tested positive. This strongly

suggests lateral transmission in these captive elk.

This is only marginally better than what Noelle Bons found with primates, 18

of 18 preclinicals testing positive.

One can see from these results why so many governments prefer clinical signs,

then histopathology, to IHC: they can downplay the scope the epidemics by

using the least sensitive test (so as not to alarm themselves or the public).

Taken at face value, this result says only 20% of the disease incubators (1

in 5) will be found by looking only at clinical animals and only 30% (3 in

10) of the cases will be found using standard histopathology (only in 1 of 8

preclinical animals). The obex of the medulla oblongata was the most

reliable tissue; on the Wyoming CWD video, one can see a technician removing

this in minutes withouta cracking open the skull.

By inference, the CWD epidemic in Colorado and Wyoming hasperhaps been

understated by these factors. Survey data could be readjusted using these

numbers, provided they didn't report zero. The distribution of disease,

especially in early stages, could be extremely understated. It is very

likely that efficient lateral transmission has occurred in this elk herd.

In my opinion like Mike of Colorado Dept of Wildlife has erred in

saying that the elk epidemic is no longer an issue and no more testing was

needed. They need to go back and repeat everything using IHC on the medulla

oblongata. In fact every state and region declaring itself free of disease

needs to go back and repeat everything with this far better diagnostic

method. If the incidence in free-ranging deer was 6% in 1998, by what method

was this determined and how high is it by this new method?

This is also extremely bad news for game farms and for wildlife adjacent to

these farms (which have already been confirmed infected across a fence line).

It suggests that the disease passes efficiently from one elk to the next and

that for every 2 recognizable animals there could be another 8 silently

incubating the disease. As these elk are unwittingly swapped from one game

farm to the next, the disease spreads silently.

Exactly the same thing is happening in British zoos. Here the need for

outbreeding of rare and endangered species requires frequent shipping of

animals internationally to maintain a proper studbook. Kirkwood gave the

warning numerous times beginning in 1995 in Vet Record papers but it had no

effect on zoos and MAFF cut off his grants in 1995.

=-=-==

Scrapie brains fed to US cows

The same group reports on 21 Oct 98 under project number 3625-32000-025-00D

on a project beginning on 1 Oct 95.

Groups of steers fed raw or rendered scrapie brain remined normal after 86

and 82 months, resp. Nine animals euthanized early because of other disease

tested normal with IHC and light microscopy. This does not favor US scrapie

being much of a threat to US cows though the authors note that there may be

other scrapie strains out there. The same argument would say that Marsh's

mink did not get sick from downer cows because the cows had earlier eaten

scrapie sheep.

Also, 14 calves were inoculated intracerebrally with CWD deerto determine its

transmissiblity to cattle. No date is given for the start of that

experiment. There were no results to report by Oct 98.

tom

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Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 16:47:43 -0800

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Subject: explosive paper on CWD under-diagnosis still under wraps

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