Insecticide
Causes Mad Cow Disease
By Fintan Dunne
Research by Kathy McMahon
Reprinted from eionews.com,
email - news@eionews.com
Pharmaceutical interests
in the UK are ignoring new scientific research that shows the
insecticide used in the UK government's own warble-fly campaigns
triggered the UK surge of 'Mad Cow' disease. Latest experiments
by Cambridge University prion specialist, David R. Brown, have
shown that manganese bonds with prions. Other researchers work
shows that prions in the bovine spine -- along which insecticides
are applied -- can be damaged by ICI's Phosmet organophosphate
(OP) insecticide -causing the disease. British scientists have
led the current theory that an infectious prion in bone meal fed
to cattle causes bovine spongiform disease (BSE).
Infectious prions
are also claimed to cause new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease
(CJD) in humans’ -from ingesting beef. But the infectious
prion theory serves to obscure a tragic chemical poisoning scandal
behind the majority of BSE cases.
The new work proves
that the prions can bond with manganese in animal feeds or mineral
licks. These manganese prions cause the neurological degeneration
seen in BSE. A similar process damages prions in human brains
damaged by lice lotions containing organophosphate. This can result
in neurological diseases like CJD and Alzheimers -later in life.
Many might be surprised
to hear that Nazi chemists developed organophosphates during the
course World War Two, as a chemical weapon nerve agent. One formulation
of the insecticide -- Maneb, or Mancozeb -- actually contains
manganese in addition to organophosphate.
The marginalized research
has devastating financial implications for ICI. It would provide
a firm basis for litigants’ -who could include CJD sufferers,
farmers across the world and families of the many British farmers
who committed suicide during this BSE debacle.
Phosmet organophosphate
has been used at high doses in British warble fly campaigns. In
1996, ICI subsidiary Zeneca sold the phosmet patent to a PO Box
company in Arizona called Gowan -just one week before the UK government
admitted to a link between BSE and nvCJD.
The politically well-connected
British pharmaceuticals group, ICI has the financial and political
clout to block research into any cause other than the infective
model. Indeed no substantive alternative research has been done.
British BSE disease management and research bodies have taken
decisions that do not seem guided by spirited scientific enquiry.
Mysterious prions that jump species are the preferred research
arena.
Scientist and organic farmer, Mark Purdey gave evidence to the
UK BSE inquiry, which warble fly insecticide was the cause of
the disease. The scientist wheeled out to rubbish Purdy's evidence
-Dr. David Ray, later turned out to have been receiving funding
from the insecticide manufacturer ICI.
A lobby group that
includes Bayer, Monsanto, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche and Schering-Plough
was behind the effort to discredit Purdey. In December 1999, the
same David Ray was appointed to the UK Veterinary Products Committee
(VPC) -a government body that licences animal medicines.
Purdey has been consistently
denied even exploratory funding to extend his privately supported
research. Yet the Purdey/Brown chemical poisoning model matches
with the epidermiological spread of CJD clusters in humans. It
also predicts the incidence of BSE-type diseases in animals. The
accepted infectious model fits neither.
The pharmaceutical
industry is all the more determined to hide the chemical source
of BSE and CJD, because a spotlight on chemicals would expose
the role the insecticides in Alzheimer's – another neurodegenerative
disease -- that might lead to claims that would dwarf those from
BSE and CJD litigants. In fact, two leading brain researchers
into CJD and Alzheimers have died in suspicious circumstances
in recent years.
In the United States,
the Environmental Protection Agency is already reviewing Phosmet's
safety. The Centers for Disease Control in the US has recently
conducted experiments on mice that confirm the organophosphate
risk.
Not only is the EC
beef slaughter campaign futile -because BSE disease is mostly
non-infectious, but unless the underlying chemical cause is addressed,
BSE will simply reappear from chemical causes. A new warble fly
campaign is already underway in France using the organophosphate
insecticide.
Of greater concern
is that some lotions for scabies and head lice are now priming
children and adults, for CJD and Alzheimers in later life.
Bonding The
Prion
Cambridge University prion biochemist, David R. Brown is dismissive
of the science behind the infectious model of BSE. He terms it
"a very limited amount of science by a few assumed- reputable
scientists." He insists there is "no evidence an infectious
agent is present in either meat or milk."
"Simple tests
on udder walls of cows -- which could easily detect an infectious
prion -- have not been done, why I don't understand."A number
of researchers have found that organophosphate (OP) in systemic
warble fly insecticide can deform the prion molecule, rendering
it ineffective at buffering free radical effects in the body.
Worse still, the prion is then partial to bond with manganese
and become a 'rogue' prion.
A chain reaction whereby
rogue prions turn others to rogues also, can explain the bovine
spongiform disease mechanism. Brown showed how prion protein bonds
benignly with copper, but lethally with manganese. Even natural
variations in relative environmental availability of manganese
versus copper can trigger prion degradation.The CJD and BSE symptoms
mirror 'manganese madness', an irreversible fatal neuro-psychiatric
degenerative syndrome that plagued manganese miners in the first
half of the last century
Shining a Light
on Spongiform
Organic
dairy farmer and peer-review-published independent scientist,
Mark Purdey, says the accepted theory of transmission from BSE-infected
cattle to human CJD -by bone meal or meat, is dependent on a mutant
prion that has never been isolated under the scientific protocol
called Koch's postulates.
Purdey's insistence
on sticking to the letter of this scientific law earned him the
condemnation of UK officialdom when he first mooted his theory.
But Purdey pointed to CJD clusters downwind of a British Phosmet
production plant to back his case.
He gave evidence to
the UK Government BSE inquiry and was supported by Conservative
MP, Thessa Gorman. His views were discounted, but his subsequent
research and the new Cambridge prion work have confirmed the alternative
theory. Despite this, and the backing of a British peer, he is
denied even exploratory funding.
Speaking from his
rural English Somerset farm yesterday -as plans forge ahead for
the European cattle cull, he asks: "Why does CJD degeneration
in humans begin in the retina, and why are CJD disease clusters
found in high altitude locations?"
The question is rhetorical,
and Purdey has an eye-opening answer. He argues that the prion
molecule has a known natural role as a shock absorber of damaging
energy from ultraviolet rays and other oxidizing agents. Once
this prion defence system is rendered ineffective by organophosphates
- for example in human head lice lotions, these oxidizing effects
have an unmediated impact on tissues. Eventually, UV radiation
damages the retina and oxidative stress destroys the brain tissues
of CJD patients. This theory would expect to find higher CJD incidence
in mountain regions -where UV radiation levels are elevated. That
prediction holds true.
A similar but accelerated
mechanism could be driving BSE. ICI's Phosmet organophosphate
warble fly insecticide -applied on the backs of animals along
the spinal column similarly degrades prions. "Systemic versions
of the insecticide are designed to make the entire cow carcass
toxic to warble fly," explains Purdey. "Unfortunately
it's toxic to prions too -especially those prions located just
millimeters from the point of application."
The damaged prions
are then ready to react with manganese in animal feed, or manganese
sprayed on land or in mineral licks -to become the driving force
of BSE neurodegeneration. Purdey says manganese-tipped prions
set off lethal chain reactions that neurologically burn through
the animal.
Chickens notoriously
excrete most of the supplements fed to them -including manganese.
And their manganese-rich excreta have been blended into cattle
feed in the UK. Natural variations in the relative environmental
availability of copper and manganese can also spur prion degeneration
says Purdey.
From this research,
any prudent person would conclude there is a significant risk
attaching to the use of organophosphate in humans. Preparations
for head lice and scabies are known to be overused in practice
and might be priming users for CJ disease.
Purdey believes his
bias for fieldwork is the key to his success. He bemoans the "reductionism"
of much lab-centered science. "I have traveled the world
to investigate known clusters of spongiform disease -something
mainstream researchers don't seem remotely interested in doing."
Since first postulating
an environmental -rather than infectious- theory of spongiform
diseases, Purdey has built evidence from around the world that
explains and predicts the incidence in humans and animals: a cluster
of CJD in Slovakia, Eastern Europe -around a manganese plant;
Rocky Mountain deer with Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), who were
found to be eating pine needles rich in manganese; the futile
slaughter of sheep in Cyprus -only for BSE to reemerge within
years.
"The reappearance
of BSE in Cyprus obviously points to an environmental cause,"
says Purdey, who is sanguine when reflecting on the condemnation
of him by mainstream scientists. "I suppose they have mortgages
and kids who need to go to university," he muses. "Privately,
some were agreeing with me, but then they would denounce me publicly.
It was quite strange really."
The Money
Trail
Critical
scientists like Purdey are unlikely to prevail. The pharmaceutical
industry holds most research purse strings, and would hardly energetically
explore an avenue of research that could expose them to litigation
for causing BSE. The official theory is lavishly funded, alternative
theories rarely, if at all.
There are more explosive
an implication to his -and other’s latest research. Purdey
says similar organophosphate-induced protein deformation could
also underlie Alzheimer's disease. If that were true, the litigation
fallout would destroy some pharmaceutical giants, and a lot of
very influential noses would be out of joint.
Disturbingly, Purdey
and other brain researchers seem to have had an undue share of
unfortunate accidents. Purdey's house was burned down and his
lawyer who was working with him on Mad Cow Disease was driven
off the road by another vehicle and subsequently died. The veterinarian
on the case also died in a car crash -locally reported as: 'Mystery
Vet Death Riddle.'
Dr. C. Bruton, a CJD
specialist -- who had just produced a paper on a new strain of
CJD -- was killed in a car crash before his work was announced
to the public. Purdey speculates that Bruton might have known
more than what was revealed in his last scientific paper.
In 1996, leading Alzheimer's
researcher Tsunao Saitoh, 46 and his 13 -year-old daughter were
killed in La Jolla, California, in what a Reuters report described
as a "very professionally done" shooting.
What Alzheimer's disease,
Mad Cow Disease, and CJ Disease have in common are abnormal brain
proteins and a putative link to organophosphates. Even Gulf War
syndrome among returning veterans has been attributed, in part
to the insecticide. But the sidelined scientists' suspicions are
still largely ignored.
In their favour at
the moment, is a growing unease on the part of the public. As
BSE forges on and Governments panic, Science may be out to lunch
on BSE, compromised by bovine spongy thinking myopathy.
Do Not Use Systemic
Organophosphate Insecticides
Do NOT treat children
with OP head lice products - they may cause CJD and Alzheimer's
Do NOT treat your
pets with OP anti-flea products
Do NOT treat cattle
or animals with OP products - they may cause BSE
Do NOT give manganese
to cattle previously dosed with a systemic OP
The relative availability
of the metals copper and manganese in you local environment is
a major factor in BSE & CJD
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