bse

ronbyrne2005

whats the risk of eating beef these days? i stopped eating it a few years back as im afraid of cjd. is it now as safe as its ever been? or am i right to avoid it?

John

As far as I know there's never been a case of BSE in Ireland. I'm probably wrong but I don't think there's a risk at all from Irish beef.

ronbyrne2005

there have been cows with bse found in ireland and a few irish people have died from cjd but they may have eaten meat from britain and/or been in britain at time of bse peak.actually just checked and there was 69 case in ireland last year!!!

http://www.oie.int/eng/info/en_esbmonde.htm

Vorsprung

There's cases of BSE every week in Ireland, but it is coming down all the time, presumably since they stop giving bone meal (?) to animals.

John, you're thinking of CJD (I think!), and there have been a couple of cases, one of the lads who had it was being treated in a place I did a few shifts in. Very sad to see, the guy was about my age (21), and heavily sedated.

John

Discount my previous statements about cases, I was in the middle of a brain exchange at the time! Although I still think eating beef is safe and I'm not going to stop.

DrIndy

lizard_ge wrote:

Eating Beef Is as safe as Eating Pork or Fish. There is a Very low risk of contracting BSE. irish beef is relatively safe due to the fact that irish cattle food producers never reduced the temperature of which they produced it.therefore destroying the prion protein that is the cause of BSE. another reason that there are low cases o BSE in ireland is because farmers dont spread copper on then land as they did in the UK. this copper element comprises a component part of the prion protein. so the UK farmers were only looking for trouble by spreading it. i hope this puts your mind somewhat to rest.

prions cannot be destroyed by heat. that is the chief problem and why cjd has been spread by using intracranial instruments on CJD patients and then using them on healthy people.

Hence Prion contaminated or suspected prion contaminated instruments are melted down after use and never sterilised and reused.

I have not heard of copper being a cause of CJD, do you have any further information on this?

John

Surely if prions are proteins there must be some way of sterilising? Something with a very high/very low pH?

DrIndy

Prions are in fact resistant to all forms of sterilising and pH, their infectivity is reduced but not eliminated.

This is the origin of the clay particle theory of prions since they can resist baking at high heat of 400C when all organic matter is destroyed. These clay particles still hold a moniker for conversion of PRP into the prion form.

This clay theory is what is thought to cause sporadic CJD as it is completely random people are infected. There has been research showing that if inert metals such as gold particles are sprayed into the nose, over a matter of weeks to months, they will migrate up neurons into the brain and this is thought to be the cause of clay particles travelling up the neurons into the brain.

Irrespective of the clay hypothesis for the transmission (it has yet to be conclusively proven), in general the PRP prion variant protein is highly heat resistant and alkali/acid tolerant and very difficult to dentature as it is a very stable form of PRP, hence the ability to be transmitted is extensive and not fully known as the disease progression is very, very slow.

Of note there is an alternative theory that CJD is a virus mediated, but this has been almost entirely debunked and the prion/proteinaceous particle theory remains.

ronbyrne2005

lizard_ge wrote:

ill try find where i read that about the copper and the prion (Sounds like a fairy tale ) will get back to you as soon as i can on this

As for sterilisation of instruments. has and can be done successfully. Ill find out also the exact solution used, but they are sterilised at a very low ph and autoclaved at 130 sumthing degree C for 30min at 15 psi.

but you claimed that the temperature of cattle food production prevented prion's surviving which is bull.dozens of cattle ae found in ireland with bse each year so if the cattle food wasnt containing prions where would they get it from