From: Phil Payne 

> Where's the analogy? In the UK did the problem first come to light when a
single
> animal was found to be sick? Or did it come to light when a number of people
got
> sick? I thought it was the latter.

It's a similie, not an analogy.

The problem was known in the UK for a long time before it became apparent
that humans might be affected.  Scrapie was the first manifestion of such
diseases, and the USA is currently banned from exporting sheep because of
it:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/nahps/scrapie/

"Kuru" is worth some searches.

> How long has the problem been "covered up" in the US? Or, to
put it another
way, how
> many weeks went by between the time this cow showed symptoms and samples were
sent
> off to be tested? This doesn't sound like a big cover-up to me.

The cow was a "downer" - testing occured _AFTER_ the meat from
the cow entered the food chain.  A day - a week - a month?  Does it matter?

> And another thing: How did this cow get the disease? Some cases of prion
diseases are
> suspected of happening spontaneously. A single protein twists by chance
(simple
> Brownian motion perhaps) into the disease shape and then starts inducing
other
> proteins to change into that shape. So did that happen to this cow? If so, it
is an
> isolated incident. Or is the disease spreading between cows? And if so, how?

Doesn't matter a tinker's fuck.  Infected meat is in the human food chain - period.

> It is possible that there is no greater incidence of mad cow disease in the
US today
> than there was 30 or 40 years ago but that now it is being looked for more
carefully
> and therefore it is being diagnosed where previously it wouldn't have been.
Or then
> again, feeding practices (which are my greatest concern) may have raised the
risks.
> If so, time to stop feeding brains to animals. But what was this cow fed?

That's what we need to know.  But with 200,000-odd "downer" cows
a year and only 20,000-odd tests, you have to ask some questions.

> These are aesky details which would take hours of effort to google up (and
I've done
> so in the past but have only partial recollections of what I read a few years
ago).
> But it is so much easier to just start slinging around the accusations -
especially
> when it involves the United States in any way, shape, or form.

I do remember quite a bit of mud being slung in our direction when _WE_ had
the problem.

> Phil, I'd take you a lot more seriously if you were not so consistently quick
to
> paint with large brushes in incredibly predictable knee-jerk ways.

Watch and wait.  Don't invest in beef stocks.

--
  Phil Payne
  http://www.isham-research.com
  +44 7785 302 803
  +49 173 6242039

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