Fwd: 20 cases of BSE on organic farms: chicken manure?

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<< Subj: 20 cases of BSE on organic farms: chicken manure?

Date: 5/6/99 10:53:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time

From: tom@... (tom)

Sender: BSE-L@... (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)

To: BSE-L@...

http://209.41.3.198/witness/stat113.htm inquiry statement of Harash Narang.

Here are some snippets relevent to the organophosphate theory, non-reporting

of preclinical disease (still relevent today), and cattle bones in the grain

feed trucks.

Does anyone have a current email for Dr. Narang? telephone is 0831 444 104

.. Also, does anyone know what reference he means with " BSE in Great

Britain, a Progress Report, May 1996 " ? [not on Medline]

thanks,

tom

1.20 BSE cases have appeared on some organic farms where the animals have

not been fed with MBM including the farm owned by Jeff Nichols. This led to

the belief that organophosphates might be responsible for BSE. However, I

have discussed this phenomenon with three organic farmers and I visited

several organic farms during 1994. I established that the cows on the farm

had been exposed to and had eaten poultry manure, which is widely used on

organic farms. I have personally witnessed cows eating poultry manure from a

heap of manure waiting to be spread on an organic farm. It is also an

established practice to add bird droppings into some cattle feed. Since MAFF

allowed poultry to be fed on meat and bone meal until 1996, the poultry

droppings would contain large amounts of the undigested agent.

2.16 If random testing had been started when I suggested it we would have

been able to discover the true extent of the disease and it could have been

eradicated. In a study undertaken for " World in Action " in 1995 World in

Action obtained 30 cattle heads from abattoirs in the Midlands. I tested 28

brains and established that 8 of the cattle tested which must have appeared

healthy at slaughter, actually had BSE. This BSE would be detected by my test

even though they were sub-clinical, symptom free cases. To date, MAFF has no

such test of its own and vacuoles are not seen in sub-clinical cases until

they develop the clinical symptoms.

2.30 I explained to Mr Ray Bradley at MAFF (MAFF's BSE research

co-ordinator) that the touch test which I had developed in the USA would not

only help to remove affected cattle from the human food chain, but would also

show the percentage of animals affected and which farms they came from. If

BSE affected farms could be identified, these animals and those affected

farms could be isolated. Cattle from those farms should not be used for

breeding purposes and this would help in eradicating the disease.

2.31 However MAFF did not want to know. Mr Bradley told me in January 1990

that BSE was like scrapie in sheep. He said that there was no risk to humans.

It was a dead-end disease as far as cattle were concerned. He told me that my

test was very sensitive and that the Minister was fully aware that affected

cattle were going through the abattoirs. He told me that my test was too

sensitive and that the Minister did not want my rubber stamp merely to prove

that they were affected. When I suggested that we might do the study

privately for our own knowledge to find out what percentage of animals were

infected if any, he told me that results eventually would become public

knowledge and this would cause a big headache for MAFF and the Government.

2.60 The PHLS also discovered during the investigations (but took no

further) the following:-

i. That one of the interviewees who had died from CJD had during his life

often chopped bulls heads to feed his dogs.

ii. That the husband of a woman who died of CJD had told me that he worked

in a cattle auction and that he had regularly witnessed cattle with clinical

symptoms of BSE being sold in auction.

iii. That a butcher whose wife had died of CJD had told me that his wife had

helped to kill animals with BSE symptoms in his back yard and that these

animals had been sold for consumption.

2.70 At about this time at a meeting with Mr Amman a farmer in Kent I was

informed when discussing how BSE had affected his herd that he had regularly

found large bones buried in feed grain supplied to him. On enquiry he

discovered that the same container lorries were being used to transport both

feed grain and bones. He also told me that he frequently identified progeny

of BSE cattle to MAFF vets, but MAFF were not prepared to accept his evidence

of vertical transmission. He is very critical of his dealings with MAFF and

their reluctance on one occasion to accept that one of his cows had BSE.

4.20 Since the emergence of BSE, similar SE's have been diagnosed in

domestic cats and captive wild animals at several zoological collections in

the British Isles (BSE in Great Britain, a Progress Report, May 1996).