vCJD transfusion-associated Fourth Case UK

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My mother was murdered by what I call corporate and political homicide i.e. FOR PROFIT! she died from a rare phenotype of CJD i.e. the Heidenhain Variant of Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease i.e. sporadic, simply meaning from unknown route and source. I have simply been trying to validate her death DOD 12/14/97 with the truth. There is a route, and there is a source. There are many here in the USA. WE must make CJD and all human TSE, of all age groups 'reportable' Nationally and Internationally, with a written CJD questionnaire asking real questions pertaining to route and source of this agent. Friendly fire has the potential to play a huge role in the continued transmission of this agent via the medical, dental, and surgical arena. We must not flounder any longer. ...TSS

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Mad cow infected blood 'to kill 1,000’

Mad cow infected blood 'to kill 1,000’


Up to 1,000 people could die of the human form of “mad cow” disease through infected blood given to them in British hospitals, ministers have been told.


By Rowena Mason, Political Correspondent


10:00PM BST 28 Apr 2013


Government experts believe there is still a risk of people contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) through blood transfusions, as about 30,000 Britons are likely to be carrying the brain-wasting illness in a dormant form — double the previous estimate.


They warn the current total death toll of 176 from vCJD could rise more than five-fold as the infection has not been wiped out of the blood supply like it has been in the food chain.


Frank Dobson, a former health secretary, tonight urged ministers to develop a nationwide screening programme for blood donors to stop future infections of vCJD, which has the potential to cause “horrendous deaths”.


People are no longer in danger of getting vCJD from eating British beef, after ministers ordered the slaughter of millions of cows when the “mad cow” disease scandal broke in 1989. Fears that hundreds of thousands of people could contract the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) proved unfounded.


However, the Government acknowledges that one in 2,000 Britons – or approximately 30,000 people- are already “silent” carriers of infectious proteins that lead some people to develop vCJD.


A little-reported study last summer concluded the prevalence of this “silent” vCJD is likely to be twice as high as previously thought.


These 30,000 carriers can unknowingly pass on the infectious proteins – known as prions – to new potential sufferers through donated blood.


Because so little is known about vCJD, there is no telling which carriers will go on to develop the disease or whether any new cases will actually materialise at all.


There have been no new cases for two years and there are thought to be no surviving sufferers of vCJD, which has always historically proved fatal.


However a new risk assessment published this month by the Government’s Health Protection Analytical team reveals that infected blood donations could cause up to 1,000 deaths in a high case scenario.


About half of the cases could develop in people who have already received blood transfusions and up to 580 cases from people who are yet to be infected with the disease. The central estimate of infections yet to occur is 205.


It suggests ministers could consider recruiting young blood donors born after 1996 once they become eligible, as they will not have eaten infected beef.


“The number of “silent” vCJD infections associated with transfusion would be much higher than the number of clinical cases,” it said. “It is therefore important to maintain, and if possible enhance, measures to prevent onward transmission of infection, notably the exclusion of recipients from donating blood.”


Mr Dobson, the former Labour Health Secretary, said “everything humanly possible should be done to develop a blood test”.


“There is no room at all for complacency,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “With a blood test, you would be able to screen every potential donor. If that screening showed the incidence was higher than thought then maybe you would do it for the whole population.”


Professor John Collinge, an expert from University College London, whose research unit has developed a blood test for vCJD, said there is an element of “wishful thinking” within the Government, with officials hoping the problem has gone away.


He said he is “sceptical of guesstimates” of future cases and believes ministers need to start a study of vCJD in blood, rather than appendices, to get a proper grip on the risk of infection through transfusions.


“The figure of one in 2,000 in the appendix study was pretty worrying,” he said. “I was pretty alarmed by that. It’s clear there is a very substantial pool of infection in the community. There needs to be blood testing to answer this question of prevalance properly.”


Sir Paul Beresford, an MP and former Conservative environment minister, also believes the Government must wake up to the potential for future vCJD infections and is campaigning for more filtering of donated blood.


“If we’ve got it wrong our grandchildren are going to potentially have an epidemic of vCJD that we can do nothing about but we can prevent it if we act now,” he said.


“There’s some quite simple things they can do. For example, there’s a new system that’s being developed that will filter red blood cells before transfusion.


“[The system] is not adequate at the moment but the Government’s argument is that there’s no sign of a risk because the number of people turning up with vCJD is going down. But it can take 10, 15, 20, 25 years for this to pop up.”


A spokesman for the Department of Health said the Government continues to encourage “people of all ages to give blood”, adding “we have one of the safest blood supplies in the world”.


“Independent experts from the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs have used this study during their considerations of measures to reduce the potential risk of transmission through blood transfusions,” she said. “There is no evidence of any UK clinical cases of vCJD being linked to a blood transfusion given after 1999.


“In fact there have been no new cases in the UK for more than two years.”


She said the study relates to people’s future potential to develop vCJD, not actual new cases that have occured.


















nothing like missing the bigger picture, but they been missing (ignroing) it since 1985 $$$




*** The discovery of previously unrecognized prion diseases in both humans and animals (i.e., Nor98 in small ruminants) demonstrates that the range of prion diseases might be wider than expected and raises crucial questions about the epidemiology and strain properties of these new forms. We are investigating this latter issue by molecular and biological comparison of VPSPr, GSS and Nor98.









Wednesday, March 28, 2012


VARIABLY PROTEASE-SENSITVE PRIONOPATHY IS TRANSMISSIBLE, price of prion poker goes up again $







Thursday, August 12, 2010


Seven main threats for the future linked to prions


First threat


The TSE road map defining the evolution of European policy for protection against prion diseases is based on a certain numbers of hypotheses some of which may turn out to be erroneous. In particular, a form of BSE (called atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), recently identified by systematic testing in aged cattle without clinical signs, may be the origin of classical BSE and thus potentially constitute a reservoir, which may be impossible to eradicate if a sporadic origin is confirmed.


***Also, a link is suspected between atypical BSE and some apparently sporadic cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. These atypical BSE cases constitute an unforeseen first threat that could sharply modify the European approach to prion diseases.


Second threat


snip...








Thursday, August 12, 2010


Seven main threats for the future linked to prions








Monday, October 10, 2011


EFSA Journal 2011 The European Response to BSE: A Success Story


snip...


EFSA and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recently delivered a scientific opinion on any possible epidemiological or molecular association between TSEs in animals and humans (EFSA Panel on Biological Hazards (BIOHAZ) and ECDC, 2011). This opinion confirmed Classical BSE prions as the only TSE agents demonstrated to be zoonotic so far but the possibility that a small proportion of human cases so far classified as "sporadic" CJD are of zoonotic origin could not be excluded. Moreover, transmission experiments to non-human primates suggest that some TSE agents in addition to Classical BSE prions in cattle (namely L-type Atypical BSE, Classical BSE in sheep, transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) and chronic wasting disease (CWD) agents) might have zoonotic potential.


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Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee


The possible impacts and consequences for public health, trade and agriculture of the Government's decision to relax import restrictions on beef Final report June 2010


2.65 At its hearing on 14 May 2010, the committee heard evidence from Dr Alan Fahey who has recently submitted a thesis on the clinical neuropsychiatric, epidemiological and diagnostic features of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.48 Dr Fahey told the committee of his concerns regarding the lengthy incubation period for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, the inadequacy of current tests and the limited nature of our current understanding of this group of diseases.49


2.66 Dr Fahey also told the committee that in the last two years a link has been established between forms of atypical CJD and atypical BSE. Dr Fahey said that: They now believe that those atypical BSEs overseas are in fact causing sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. They were not sure if it was due to mad sheep disease or a different form. If you look in the textbooks it looks like this is just arising by itself. But in my research I have a summary of a document which states that there has never been any proof that sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has arisen de novo-has arisen of itself. There is no proof of that. The recent research is that in fact it is due to atypical forms of mad cow disease which have been found across Europe, have been found in America and have been found in Asia. These atypical forms of mad cow disease typically have even longer incubation periods than the classical mad cow disease.50








Atypical BSE in Cattle


To date the OIE/WAHO assumes that the human and animal health standards set out in the BSE chapter for classical BSE (C-Type) applies to all forms of BSE which include the H-type and L-type atypical forms. This assumption is scientifically not completely justified and accumulating evidence suggests that this may in fact not be the case. Molecular characterization and the spatial distribution pattern of histopathologic lesions and immunohistochemistry (IHC) signals are used to identify and characterize atypical BSE. Both the L-type and H-type atypical cases display significant differences in the conformation and spatial accumulation of the disease associated prion protein (PrPSc) in brains of afflicted cattle. Transmission studies in bovine transgenic and wild type mouse models support that the atypical BSE types might be unique strains because they have different incubation times and lesion profiles when compared to C-type BSE. When L-type BSE was inoculated into ovine transgenic mice and Syrian hamster the resulting molecular fingerprint had changed, either in the first or a subsequent passage, from L-type into C-type BSE.


In addition, non-human primates are specifically susceptible for atypical BSE as demonstrated by an approximately 50% shortened incubation time for L-type BSE as compared to C-type. Considering the current scientific information available, it cannot be assumed that these different BSE types pose the same human health risks as C-type BSE or that these risks are mitigated by the same protective measures.


This study will contribute to a correct definition of specified risk material (SRM) in atypical BSE. The incumbent of this position will develop new and transfer existing, ultra-sensitive methods for the detection of atypical BSE in tissue of experimentally infected cattle.








P.4.23


Transmission of atypical BSE in humanized mouse models


Liuting Qing1, Wenquan Zou1, Cristina Casalone2, Martin Groschup3, Miroslaw Polak4, Maria Caramelli2, Pierluigi Gambetti1, Juergen Richt5, Qingzhong Kong1 1Case Western Reserve University, USA; 2Instituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale, Italy; 3Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany; 4National Veterinary Research Institute, Poland; 5Kansas State University (Previously at USDA National Animal Disease Center), USA


Background: Classical BSE is a world-wide prion disease in cattle, and the classical BSE strain (BSE-C) has led to over 200 cases of clinical human infection (variant CJD). Atypical BSE cases have been discovered in three continents since 2004; they include the L-type (also named BASE), the H-type, and the first reported case of naturally occurring BSE with mutated bovine PRNP (termed BSE-M). The public health risks posed by atypical BSE were largely undefined.


Objectives: To investigate these atypical BSE types in terms of their transmissibility and phenotypes in humanized mice. Methods: Transgenic mice expressing human PrP were inoculated with several classical (C-type) and atypical (L-, H-, or Mtype) BSE isolates, and the transmission rate, incubation time, characteristics and distribution of PrPSc, symptoms, and histopathology were or will be examined and compared.


Results: Sixty percent of BASE-inoculated humanized mice became infected with minimal spongiosis and an average incubation time of 20-22 months, whereas only one of the C-type BSE-inoculated mice developed prion disease after more than 2 years. Protease-resistant PrPSc in BASE-infected humanized Tg mouse brains was biochemically different from bovine BASE or sCJD. PrPSc was also detected in the spleen of 22% of BASE-infected humanized mice, but not in those infected with sCJD. Secondary transmission of BASE in the humanized mice led to a small reduction in incubation time.*** The atypical BSE-H strain is also transmissible with distinct phenotypes in the humanized mice, but no BSE-M transmission has been observed so far.


Discussion: Our results demonstrate that BASE is more virulent than classical BSE, has a lymphotropic phenotype, and displays a modest transmission barrier in our humanized mice. BSE-H is also transmissible in our humanized Tg mice. The possibility of more than two atypical BSE strains will be discussed.


Supported by NINDS NS052319, NIA AG14359, and NIH AI 77774.








P26 TRANSMISSION OF ATYPICAL BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY (BSE) IN HUMANIZED MOUSE MODELS


Liuting Qing1, Fusong Chen1, Michael Payne1, Wenquan Zou1, Cristina Casalone2, Martin Groschup3, Miroslaw Polak4, Maria Caramelli2, Pierluigi Gambetti1, Juergen Richt5*, and Qingzhong Kong1 1Department of Pathology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA; 2CEA, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale, Italy; 3Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut, Germany; 4National Veterinary Research Institute, Poland; 5Kansas State University, Diagnostic Medicine/Pathobiology Department, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA. *Previous address: USDA National Animal Disease Center, Ames, IA 50010, USA


Classical BSE is a world-wide prion disease in cattle, and the classical BSE strain (BSE-C) has led to over 200 cases of clinical human infection (variant CJD). Two atypical BSE strains, BSE-L (also named BASE) and BSE-H, have been discovered in three continents since 2004. The first case of naturally occurring BSE with mutated bovine PrP gene (termed BSE-M) was also found in 2006 in the USA. The transmissibility and phenotypes of these atypical BSE strains/isolates in humans were unknown. We have inoculated humanized transgenic mice with classical and atypical BSE strains (BSE-C, BSE-L, BSE-H) and the BSE-M isolate. We have found that the atypical BSE-L strain is much more virulent than the classical BSE-C. *** The atypical BSE-H strain is also transmissible in the humanized transgenic mice with distinct phenotype, but no transmission has been observed for the BSE-M isolate so far.


III International Symposium on THE NEW PRION BIOLOGY: BASIC SCIENCE, DIAGNOSIS AND THERAPY 2 - 4 APRIL 2009, VENEZIA (ITALY)







I ask Professor Kong ;


Thursday, December 04, 2008 3:37 PM Subject: RE: re--Chronic Wating Disease (CWD) and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies (BSE): Public Health Risk Assessment


''IS the h-BSE more virulent than typical BSE as well, or the same as cBSE, or less virulent than cBSE? just curious.....''


Professor Kong reply ;


.....snip


''As to the H-BSE, we do not have sufficient data to say one way or another, but we have found that H-BSE can infect humans. I hope we could publish these data once the study is complete. Thanks for your interest.''


Best regards, Qingzhong Kong, PhD Associate Professor Department of Pathology Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH 44106 USA


END...TSS


Thursday, December 04, 2008 2:37 PM


"we have found that H-BSE can infect humans."


personal communication with Professor Kong. ...TSS


BSE-H is also transmissible in our humanized Tg mice.


The possibility of more than two atypical BSE strains will be discussed.


Supported by NINDS NS052319, NIA AG14359, and NIH AI 77774.
















Atypical BSE (BASE) Transmitted from Asymptomatic Aging Cattle to a Primate


Emmanuel E. Comoy1*, Cristina Casalone2, Nathalie Lescoutra-Etchegaray1, Gianluigi Zanusso3, Sophie Freire1, Dominique Marcé1, Frédéric Auvré1, Marie-Magdeleine Ruchoux1, Sergio Ferrari3, Salvatore Monaco3, Nicole Salès4, Maria Caramelli2, Philippe Leboulch1,5, Paul Brown1, Corinne I. Lasmézas4, Jean-Philippe Deslys1


1 Institute of Emerging Diseases and Innovative Therapies, CEA, Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, 2 Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, Turin, Italy, 3 Policlinico G.B. Rossi, Verona, Italy, 4 Scripps Florida, Jupiter, Florida, United States of America, 5 Genetics Division, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America


Abstract Top Background Human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) results from foodborne transmission of prions from slaughtered cattle with classical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (cBSE). Atypical forms of BSE, which remain mostly asymptomatic in aging cattle, were recently identified at slaughterhouses throughout Europe and North America, raising a question about human susceptibility to these new prion strains.


Methodology/Principal Findings Brain homogenates from cattle with classical BSE and atypical (BASE) infections were inoculated intracerebrally into cynomolgus monkeys (Macacca fascicularis), a non-human primate model previously demonstrated to be susceptible to the original strain of cBSE. The resulting diseases were compared in terms of clinical signs, histology and biochemistry of the abnormal prion protein (PrPres). The single monkey infected with BASE had a shorter survival, and a different clinical evolution, histopathology, and prion protein (PrPres) pattern than was observed for either classical BSE or vCJD-inoculated animals. Also, the biochemical signature of PrPres in the BASE-inoculated animal was found to have a higher proteinase K sensitivity of the octa-repeat region. We found the same biochemical signature in three of four human patients with sporadic CJD and an MM type 2 PrP genotype who lived in the same country as the infected bovine.


Conclusion/Significance Our results point to a possibly higher degree of pathogenicity of BASE than classical BSE in primates and also raise a question about a possible link to one uncommon subset of cases of apparently sporadic CJD. Thus, despite the waning epidemic of classical BSE, the occurrence of atypical strains should temper the urge to relax measures currently in place to protect public health from accidental contamination by BSE-contaminated products.


Citation: Comoy EE, Casalone C, Lescoutra-Etchegaray N, Zanusso G, Freire S, et al. (2008) Atypical BSE (BASE) Transmitted from Asymptomatic Aging Cattle to a Primate. PLoS ONE 3(8): e3017. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003017


Editor: Neil Mabbott, University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom


Received: April 24, 2008; Accepted: August 1, 2008; Published: August 20, 2008


Copyright: © 2008 Comoy et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


Funding: This work has been supported by the Network of Excellence NeuroPrion.


Competing interests: CEA owns a patent covering the BSE diagnostic tests commercialized by the company Bio-Rad.


* E-mail: emmanuel.comoy@cea.fr




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In summary, we have transmitted one atypical form of BSE (BASE) to a cynomolgus macaque monkey that had a shorter incubation period than monkeys infected with classical BSE, with distinctive clinical, neuropathological, and biochemical features; and have shown that the molecular biological signature resembled that seen in a comparatively uncommon subtype of sporadic CJD. We cannot yet say whether BASE is more pathogenic for primates (including humans) than cBSE, nor can we predict whether its molecular biological features represent a clue to one cause of apparently sporadic human CJD. However, the evidence presented here and by others justifies concern about a potential human health hazard from undetected atypical forms of BSE, and despite the waning epizoonosis of classical BSE, it would be premature to abandon the precautionary measures that have been so successful in reversing the impact of cBSE. We would instead urge a gradual, staged reduction that takes into account the evolving knowledge about atypical ruminant diseases, and both a permanent ban on the use of bovine central nervous system tissue for either animal or human use, and its destruction so as to eliminate any risk of environmental contamination.









Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004 March 2; 101(9): 3065–3070. Published online 2004 February 17. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0305777101 PMCID: PMC365745 Medical Sciences



Identification of a second bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy: Molecular similarities with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease



Cristina Casalone,*† Gianluigi Zanusso,†‡ Pierluigi Acutis,* Sergio Ferrari,‡ Lorenzo Capucci,§ Fabrizio Tagliavini,¶ Salvatore Monaco,‡ and Maria Caramelli*


Abstract


Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), or prion diseases, are mammalian neurodegenerative disorders characterized by a posttranslational conversion and brain accumulation of an insoluble, protease-resistant isoform (PrPSc) of the host-encoded cellular prion protein (PrPC). Human and animal TSE agents exist as different phenotypes that can be biochemically differentiated on the basis of the molecular mass of the protease-resistant PrPSc fragments and the degree of glycosylation. Epidemiological, molecular, and transmission studies strongly suggest that the single strain of agent responsible for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has infected humans, causing variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The unprecedented biological properties of the BSE agent, which circumvents the so-called ”species barrier” between cattle and humans and adapts to different mammalian species, has raised considerable concern for human health. To date, it is unknown whether more than one strain might be responsible for cattle TSE or whether the BSE agent undergoes phenotypic variation after natural transmission. Here we provide evidence of a second cattle TSE. The disorder was pathologically characterized by the presence of PrP-immunopositive amyloid plaques, as opposed to the lack of amyloid deposition in typical BSE cases, and by a different pattern of regional distribution and topology of brain PrPSc accumulation. In addition, Western blot analysis showed a PrPSc type with predominance of the low molecular mass glycoform and a protease-resistant fragment of lower molecular mass than BSE-PrPSc. Strikingly, the molecular signature of this previously undescribed bovine PrPSc was similar to that encountered in a distinct subtype of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.


snip...


Phenotypic Similarities Between BASE and sCJD. The transmissibility of CJD brains was initially demonstrated in primates (27), and classification of atypical cases as CJD was based on this property (28). To date, no systematic studies of strain typing in sCJD have been provided, and classification of different subtypes is based on clinical, neuropathological, and molecular features (the polymorphic PRNP codon 129 and the PrPSc glycotype) (8, 9, 15, 19). The importance of molecular PrPSc characterization in assessing the identity of TSE strains is underscored by several studies, showing that the stability of given disease-specific PrPSc types is maintained upon experimental propagation of sCJD, familial CJD, and vCJD isolates in transgenic PrP-humanized mice (8, 29). Similarly, biochemical properties of BSE- and vCJD-associated PrPSc molecules remain stable after passage to mice expressing bovine PrP (30). Recently, however, it has been reported that PrP-humanized mice inoculated with BSE tissues may also propagate a distinctive PrPSc type, with a ”monoglycosylated-dominant” pattern and electrophoretic mobility of the unglycosylated fragment slower than that of vCJD and BSE (31). Strikingly, this PrPSc type shares its molecular properties with the a PrPSc molecule found in classical sCJD. This observation is at variance with the PrPSc type found in M/V2 sCJD cases and in cattle BASE, showing a monoglycosylated-dominant pattern but faster electrophoretic mobility of the protease-resistant fragment as compared with BSE. In addition to molecular properties of PrPSc, BASE and M/V2 sCJD share a distinctive pattern of intracerebral PrP deposition, which occurs as plaque-like and amyloid-kuru plaques. Differences were, however, observed in the regional distribution of PrPSc. While in M/V2 sCJD cases the largest amounts of PrPSc were detected in the cerebellum, brainstem, and striatum, in cattle BASE these areas were less involved and the highest levels of PrPSc were recovered from the thalamus and olfactory regions.


In conclusion, decoding the biochemical PrPSc signature of individual human and animal TSE strains may allow the identification of potential risk factors for human disorders with unknown etiology, such as sCJD. However, although BASE and sCJD share several characteristics, caution is dictated in assessing a link between conditions affecting two different mammalian species, based on convergent biochemical properties of disease-associated PrPSc types. Strains of TSE agents may be better characterized upon passage to transgenic mice. In the interim until this is accomplished, our present findings suggest a strict epidemiological surveillance of cattle TSE and sCJD based on molecular criteria.









FC5.1.1




Transmission Results in Squirrel Monkeys Inoculated with Human sCJD, vCJD, and GSS Blood Specimens: the Baxter Study




Brown, P1; Gibson, S2; Williams, L3; Ironside, J4; Will, R4; Kreil, T5; Abee, C3 1Fondation Alliance BioSecure, France; 2University of South Alabama, USA; 3University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA; 4Western General Hospital, UK; 5Baxter BioSience, Austria


Background: Rodent and sheep models of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) have documented blood infectivity in both the pre-clinical and clinical phases of disease. Results in a (presumably more appropriate) non-human primate model have not been reported.


Objective: To determine if blood components (red cells, white cells, platelets, and plasma) from various forms of human TSE are infectious.


Methods: Blood components were inoculated intra-cerebrally (0.1 ml) and intravenously (0.5 ml) into squirrel monkeys from 2 patients with sporadic Creutzfeldt- Jakob disease (sCJD) and 3 patients with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). Additional monkeys were inoculated with buffy coat or plasma samples from chimpanzees infected with either sCJD or Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker disease (GSS). Animals were monitored for a period of 5 years, and all dying or sacrificed animals had post-mortem neuropathological examinations and Western blots to determine the presence or absence of the misfolded prion protein (PrPTSE).


Results: No transmissions occurred in any of the animals inoculated with blood components from patients with sporadic or variant CJD. All donor chimpanzees (sCJD and GSS) became symptomatic within 6 weeks of their pre-clinical phase plasmapheresis, several months earlier than the expected onset of illness. One monkey inoculated with purified leukocytes from a pre-clinical GSS chimpanzee developed disease after 36 months.


Conclusion: No infectivity was found in small volumes of blood components from 4 patients with sporadic CJD and 3 patients with variant CJD. ***However, a single transmission from a chimpanzee-passaged strain of GSS shows that infectivity may be present in leukocytes, and the shock of general anaesthesia and plasmspheresis appears to have triggered the onset of illness in pre-clinical donor chimpanzees.





Saturday, September 5, 2009



TSEAC MEETING FEBRUARY 12, 2004 THE BAXTER STUDY GSS



snip...









Saturday, September 5, 2009



TSEAC MEETING FEBRUARY 12, 2004 THE BAXTER STUDY GSS



snip...



But the first thing is our own study, and as I mentioned, it's a Baxter primate study, and those are the major participants. And the goal was twofold, and here is the first one: to see whether CJD, either sporadic or familial -- actually it turns out to be the familial CJD is incorrect. It really should be the Fukuoka strain of Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease. So it's really GSS instead of familial CJD -- when passaged through chimps into squirrel monkeys using purified blood components, very pure blood components.


So this addresses the question that was raised just recently about whether or not red cell infectivity that's been found in rodents is really in the red cells or is it contaminated.


We prepared these samples with exquisite care, and they are ultra-ultra-ultra purified. There's virtually no contamination of any of the components that we looked at ? platelets, red cells, plasma, white cells -- with any other component.


These are a sort of new set of slides, and what I've tried to do is make them less complicated and more clear, but I'm afraid I haven't included the build. So you'll just have to try and follow what I explain with this little red pointer.


There were three initial patients. Two of them had sporadic CJD. One of them had Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome. Brain tissue from each individual patient was inoculated intracerebrally into a pair of chimpanzees. All right?


From those chimps, either plasma or ultra purified -- in fact, everything is ultra-purified. I'll just talk about purified plasma, purified white cells -- were inoculated intracerebrally and intravenously to get the maximum amount of infective load into a pair of squirrel monkeys.


The same thing was done for each of these three sets. This monkey died from non-CJD causes at 34 months post inoculation.


Let me go back for a second. I didn't point out the fact that these were not sacrificed at this point. These chimpanzees were apheresed at 27 weeks when they were still asymptomatic. In this instance, we apheresed them terminally when they were symptomatic.


And before I forget, I want to mention just a little sidelight of this. Chimpanzees in our experience -- and I think we may be the only people that have ever inoculated chimpanzees, and that's no longer a possibility, so this was 20, 30 years ago -- the shortest incubation period of any chimpanzee that we have ever seen with direct intracerebral inoculation is 13 months.


So we chose 27 weeks, which is about seven months, and incidentally typically the incubation period is more like 16 or 18 months. The shortest was 13 months. We chose the 27th week, which is about six and a half months, thinking that this would be about halfway through the incubation period, which we wanted to check for the presence or absence of infectivity.


But within four weeks after the apheresis, which was conducted under general anesthesia for three or four hours apiece, every single one of the six chimpanzees became symptomatic. That is another experiment that I would love to conclude, perhaps because this is simply not heard of, and it very much smells like we triggered clinical illness. We didn't trigger the disease, but it certainly looks like we triggered symptomatic disease at a point that was much earlier than one would have possibly expected.


Maybe it will never be done because it would probably open the floodgates of litigation. There's no end of little things that you can find out from CJD patients after the fact. For example, the neighbor's dog comes over, barks at a patient, makes him fall down, and three weeks later he gets CJD. So you have a lawsuit against the neighbor.


I mean, this is not an unheard of matter, but I do think that physical stress in the form of anesthesia and four hours of whatever goes on with anesthesia, low blood pressure, sometimes a little hypoxemia looks like it's a bad thing.


So here we have the 31st week. All of the chimps are symptomatic, and here what we did was in order to make the most use of the fewest monkeys, which is always a problem in primate research, we took these same three patients and these six chimps. Only now we pooled these components; that is to say, we pooled the plasma from all six chimps. We pooled ultra-purified white cells from all six chimps because here we wanted to see whether or not we could distinguish a difference between intracerebral route of infection and intravenous route of infection.


With respect to platelets and red blood cells, we did not follow that. We inoculated both intracerebral and intravenously, as we had done earlier because nobody has any information on whether or not platelets and red cells are infectious, and so we wanted again to get the maximum.


This is an IV versus IC goal. This one, again, is just getting the maximum load in to see whether there is, in fact, any infectivity in pure platelets, in pure red cells.


And of all of the above, the only transmission of disease related to the inoculation was in a squirrel monkey that received pure leukocytes from the presymptomatic apheresis. So that goes some way to address the question as to whether or not it's a matter of contamination. To date the red cells have not been -- the monkeys that receive red cells have not been observed for more than a year because that was a later experiment.


So we still can't say about red cells, but we're about four and a half years down the road now, and we have a single transmission from purified leukocytes, nothing from plasma and nothing from platelets.


That was the first part of the experiment. The second part was undertaken with the cooperation of Bob Will and others supplying material to us. These were a couple of human, sporadic cases of CJD and three variant cases of CJD from which we obtained buffy coat and plasma separated in a normal way. That is, these are not purified components.


The two cases of sporadic CJD, the plasma was pooled from both patients. The buffy coat was pooled from both patients, and then inoculated intracerebrally and intravenously into three squirrel monkeys each. This is a non-CJD death five years after inoculation. The other animals are still alive.


For variant CJD we decided not to pool. It was more important to eliminate the possibility that there was just a little bit of infectivity in one patient that would have been diluted to extinction, if you like, by mixing them if it were to so occur with two patients, for example, who did not have infectivity. So each one of these was done individually, but the principle was the same: plasma and buffy coat for each patient was inoculated into either two or three squirrel monkeys. This is, again, a non-CJD related death.


In addition to that, we inoculated rain as a positive control from the two sporadic disease cases of human -- from the two human sporadic cases at ten to the minus one and ten to the minus three dilutions. We have done this many, many times in the past with other sporadic patients. So we knew what to expect, and we got exactly what we did expect, namely, after an incubation period not quite two years, all four monkeys developed disease at this dilution and at the minus three dilution, not a whole lot of difference between the two.


Now, these are the crucial monkeys because each one of these monkeys every three to four months was bled and the blood transfused into a new healthy monkey, but the same monkey all the time. So this monkey, for example, would have received in the course of 21 months about six different transfusions of blood from this monkey into this monkey, similarly with this pair, this pair, and this pair. So you can call these buddies. This is sort of the term that was used. These monkeys are still alive.


In the same way, the three human variant CJD specimens, brain, were inoculated into four monkeys, and again, each one of these monkeys has been repeatedly bled at three to four month intervals and that blood transfused into a squirrel monkey, the same one each time. Ideally we would love to have taken bleeding at three months and inoculated a monkey and then let him go, watch him, and then done the same thing at six months. It would have increased the number of monkeys eightfold and just unacceptably expensive. So we did the best we could.


That, again, is a non-CJD death, as is this.


This was of interest mainly to show that the titer of infectivity in brain from variant CJD is just about the same as it from sporadic. We didn't do a minus five and a minus seven in sporadic because we have an enormous experience already with sporadic disease in squirrel monkeys, and we know that this is exactly what happens. It disappears at about ten to the minus five. So the brain titer in monkeys receiving human vCJD is identical to the brain titer in monkeys that have been inoculated with sporadic CJD.


That's the experiment. All of the monkeys in aqua are still alive. They are approaching a five-year observation period, and I think the termination of this experiment will now need to be discussed very seriously in view of a probable six-year incubation period in the U.K. case. The original plan was to terminate the experiment after five years of observation with the understanding that ideally you would keep these animals for their entire life span, which is what we used to do when had unlimited space, money, and facilities. We can't do that anymore.


It's not cheap, but I think in view of the U.K. case, it will be very important to think very seriously about allowing at least these buddies and the buddies from the sporadic CJD to go on for several more years because although you might think that the U.K. case has made experimental work redundant, in point of fact, anything that bears on the risk of this disease in humans is worthwhile knowing, and one of the things we don't know is frequency of infection. We don't know whether this case in the U.K. is going to be unique and never happen again or whether all 13 or 14 patients have received blood components are ultimately going to die. Let's hope not.


The French primate study is primarily directed now by Corinne Lasmezas. As you know, the late Dominique Dromont was the original, originally initiated this work, and they have very active primate laboratory in France, and I'm only going to show two very simple slides to summarize what they did.


The first one is simply to show you the basis of their statement that the IV route of infection looks to be pretty efficient because we all know that the intracerebral route of infection is the most efficient, and if you look at this where they inoculated the same infective load either intracerebrally or intravenously, the incubation periods were not substantially different, which suggests but doesn't prove, but doesn't prove that the route of infection is pretty efficient.


Lower doses of brain material given IV did extend the incubation period and presumably it's because of the usual dose response phenomenon that you see in any infectious disease.


With a whopping dose of brain orally, the incubation period was even lower. Again, just one more example of inefficiency of the route of infection and the necessity to use more infective material to get transmissions.


And they also have blood inoculated IV which is on test, and the final slide or at least the penultimate slide shows you what they have on test and the time of observation, that taken human vCJD and like us inoculated buffy coat, they've also inoculated whole blood which we did not do.


So to a great extent their studies are complementary to ours and makes it all worthwhile.


We have about -- oh, I don't know -- a one to two-year lead time on the French, but they're still getting into pretty good observation periods. Here's three-plus years.


They have variant CJD adapted to the macaque. That is to say this one was passaged in macaque monkeys, the cynomolgus, and they did the same thing. Again, we're talking about a study here in which like ours there are no transmissions. I mean, we have that one transmission from leukocytes, and that's it.


Here is a BSE adapted to the macaque. Whole blood, and then they chose to inoculate leukodepleted whole blood, in both instances IV. Here they are out to five years without a transmission.


And then finally oral dosing of the macaque, which had been infected with -- which was infected with BSE, but a macaque passaged BSE, whole blood buffy coat and plasma, all by the IC route, and they're out to three years.


So with the single exception of the leukocyte transmission from our chimp that was inoculated with a sporadic case of CJD or -- excuse me -- with a GSS, Gerstmann-Straussler, in neither our study nor the French study, which are not yet completed have we yet seen a transmission.


And I will just close with a little cartoon that appeared in the Washington Post that I modified slightly lest you get too wound up with these questions of the risk from blood. This should be a "corrective."


(Laughter.)


DR. BROWN: Thanks.


Questions?


CHAIRPERSON PRIOLA: Yes. Any questions for Dr. Brown? Dr. Linden.


DR. LINDEN: I just want to make sure I understand your study design correctly. When you mention the monkeys that have the IV and IC inoculations, the individual monkeys had both or --


DR. BROWN: Yes, yes, yes. That's exactly right.


DR. LINDEN: So an individual monkey had both of those as opposed to some monkeys had one and some had the other?


DR. BROWN: Correct, correct. Where IC and IV are put down together was IC plus IV into a given monkey.


DR. LINDEN: Into a given monkey. Okay.


And the IC inoculations, where were those given?


DR. BROWN: Right parietal cortex, Southern Alabama.


(Laughter.)


DR. BROWN: Oh, it can't be that clear. Yeah, here, Pierluigi.


CHAIRPERSON PRIOLA: Dr. Epstein.


DR. BROWN: Pierluigi always damns me with feint praise. He always says that's a very interesting study, but. I'm waiting for that, Pierluigi.


I think Jay Epstein --


DR. GAMBETTI: I will say that there's an interesting study and will say, but I just --


(Laughter.)


DR. GAMBETTI: -- I just point of review. You talk about a point of information. You say that -- you mention GSS, I guess, and the what, Fukuowa (phonetic) --


DR. BROWN: Yes, Fukuoka 1.


DR. GAMBETTI: Fukuowa, and is that from the 102, if I remember correctly, of the --


DR. BROWN: Yes, that is correct.


DR. GAMBETTI: Because that is the only one that also --


DR. BROWN: No, it's not 102. It's 101. It's the standard. It's a classical GSS. Oh, excuse me. You're right. One, oh, two is classical GSS. It's been so long since I've done genetics. You're right.


DR. GAMBETTI: Because that is the only one I know, I think, that I can remember that has both the seven kv fragment that is characteristic of GSS, but also the PrPsc 2730. So in a sense, it can be stretching a little bit compared to the sporadic CJD.


DR. BROWN: Yeah, I think that's right. That's why I want to be sure that I made you aware on the very first slide that that was not accurate, that it truly was GSS.


There's a GSS strain that has been adapted to mice, and it's a hot strain, and therefore, it may not be translatable to sporadic disease, correct. All we can say for sure is that it is a human TSE, and it is not variant. I think that's about it.


DR. GAMBETTI: I agree, but this is also not perhaps the best --


DR. BROWN: No, it is not the best. We understand --


DR. GAMBETTI: -- of GSS either.


DR. BROWN: Yeah. If we had to do it over again, we'd look around for a -- well, I don't know. We'd probably do it the same way because we have two sporadics already on test they haven't transmitted, and so you can take your pick of what you want to pay attention to.


Jay?


DR. EPSTEIN: Yes, Paul. Could you just comment? If I understood you correctly, when you did the pooled apheresis plasma from the six chimps when they were symptomatic at 31 weeks, you also put leukocytes into squirrel monkeys in that case separately IV and IC, but in that instance you have not seen an infection come down in squirrel monkey, and the question is whether it's puzzling that you got transmission from the 27-week asymptomatic sampling, whereas you did not see transmission from the 31-week sampling in symptomatic animals.


DR. BROWN: Yes, I think there are two or three possible explanations, and I don't know if any of them are important. The pre-symptomatic animal was almost symptomatic as it turned out so that we were pretty close to the period at which symptoms would being, and whether you can, you know, make much money on saying one was incubation period and the other was symptomatic in this particular case because both bleedings were so close together. That's one possibility.


The other possibility is we're dealing with a very irregular phenomenon and you're not surprised at all by surprises, so to speak so that a single animal, you could see it almost anywhere.


The third is that we, in fact, did just what I suggested we didn't want to do for the preclinical, namely, by pooling we got under the threshold. See?


You can again take that for what it's worth. It is a possible explanation, and again, until we know what the levels of infectivity are and whether by pooling we get under the threshold of transmission, we simply cannot make pronouncements.


CHAIRPERSON PRIOLA: Dr. DeArmond.


DR. DeARMOND: Yeah, it was very interesting data, but the --


(Laughter.)


DR. BROWN: I just love it. Go ahead.


DR. DeARMOND: Two comments. The first one was that the GSS cases, as I remember from reading your publications -- I think Gibbs was involved with them -- when you transmitted the GSS into animals, into monkeys, perhaps I think it was chimps, the transmission was more typical of CJD rather than GSS. There were no amyloid plaques. It was vacuolar degeneration so that you may be transmitting a peculiar form, as I criticized once in Bali and then you jumped all over me about.


DR. BROWN: I may do it again.


DR. DeARMOND: Calling me a bigot and some other few things like that.


(Laughter.)


DR. BROWN: Surely not. I wouldn't have said that.


DR. DeARMOND: So there could be something strange about that particular --


DR. BROWN: Yeah. I think you and Pierluigi are on the same page here. This may be an unusual strain from a number of points of view.


DR. DeARMOND: The other question though has to do with species barrier because the data you're showing is kind of very reassuring to us that it's hard to transmit from blood, but the data from the sheep and from the hamsters and some of the work, I think, that has been done by others, that it's easy in some other animals to transmit, hamster to hamster, mouse to mouse.


Could you comment on the --


DR. BROWN: That's exactly why we went to primates. That's exactly it, because a primate is closer to a human than a mouse is, and that's just common sense.


And so to try and get a little closer to the human situation and not totally depend on rodents for transferrable data, that is why you would use a primate. Otherwise you wouldn't use them. They're too expensive and they cause grief to animal care study people and protocol makers and the whole thing.


Primate studies are a real pain.


DR. DeARMOND: But right now it's inconclusive and you need more time on it.


DR. BROWN: I believe that's true. I think if we cut it off at six years you could still say it was inconclusive, and cutting it off at all will be to some degree inconclusive, and that's just the way it is.


DR. DeARMOND: So what has to be done? Who do you have to convince, or who do we all have to convince to keep that going?


DR. BROWN: Thomas?


Without trying to be flip at all, the people that would be the first people to try to convince would be the funders of the original study. If that fails, and it might for purely practical reasons of finance, then we will have to look elsewhere because I really don't want to see those animals sacrificed, not those eight buddies. Those are crucial animals, and they don't cost a whole lot to maintain. You can maintain eight -- well, they cost a lot from my point of view, but 15 to $20,000 a year would keep them going year after year.


CHAIRPERSON PRIOLA: Dr. Johnson.


DR. JOHNSON: Yeah, Paul, I'm intrigued as you are by the shortening of the incubation period. Have you in all of the other years of handling these animals when they were transfused, when they were flown out to Louisiana at night -- a lot of the stressful things have happened to some of these chimps. Have you ever noticed that before or is this a new observation?


DR. BROWN: Brand new.


MR. JOHNSON: Brand new. Okay.


CHAIRPERSON PRIOLA: Bob, did you want to say something? Dr. Rohwer.


DR. ROHWER: The Frederick fire, wasn't that correlated with a lot of --


DR. BROWN: Not that I k now of, but you may --


DR. ROHWER: Well, that occurred shortly after I came to NIH, and what I remember is that there were a whole bunch of conversions that occurred within the few months following the fire. That was fire that occurred adjacent to the NINDS facility, but in order to protect it, they moved the monkeys out onto the tarmac because they weren't sure it wouldn't burn as well.


DR. BROWN: Well, if you're right, then it's not brand new, but I mean, I'm not sure how we'll ever know because if I call Carlton and ask him, I'm not sure but what I would trust the answer that he gives me, short of records.


You know, Carlot is a very enthusiastic person, and he might say, "Oh, yeah, my God, the whole floor died within three days," but I would want to verify that.


On the other hand, it may be verifiable. There possibly are records that are still extant.


DR. ROHWER: Actually I thought I heard the story from you.


(Laughter.)


DR. BROWN: You didn't because it's brand new for me. I mean, either that or I'm on the way


(Laughter.)


CHAIRPERSON PRIOLA: Dr. Bracey.


DR. BRACEY: I was wondering if some of the variability in terms of the intravenous infection route may be related to intraspecies barriers, that is, the genetic differences, the way the cells, the white leukocytes are processed, whether or not microchimerism is established, et cetera.


DR. BROWN: I don't think that processing is at fault, but the question, the point that you raise is a very good one, and needless to say, we have material with which we can analyze genetically all of the animals, and should it turn out that we get, for example, -- I don't know -- a transmission in one variant monkey and no transmissions in another and a transmission in three sporadic monkeys, we will at that point genetically analyze every single animal that has been used in this study, but we wanted to wait until we could see what would be most useful to analyze.


but the material is there, and if need be, we'll do it.


CHAIRPERSON PRIOLA: Okay. Thank you very much, Dr. Brown.


I think we'll move on to the open public hearing section of the morning.



snip...






snip...



see full text ;







(Laughter.)





Saturday, January 20, 2007



Fourth case of transfusion-associated vCJD infection in the United Kingdom







(Laughter.)




Friday, June 29, 2012



Highly Efficient Prion Transmission by Blood Transfusion






(Laughter.)



Wednesday, August 24, 2011


All Clinically-Relevant Blood Components Transmit Prion Disease following a Single Blood Transfusion: A Sheep Model of vCJD





(Laughter.)




Wednesday, August 24, 2011


There Is No Safe Dose of Prions






(Laughter.)




Sunday, May 1, 2011


W.H.O. T.S.E. PRION Blood products and related biologicals May 2011






(Laughter.)




Monday, February 7, 2011


FDA’s Currently-Recommended Policies to Reduce the Possible Risk of Transmission of CJD and vCJD by Blood and Blood Products 2011 ???







(Laughter.)




Sunday, August 01, 2010


Blood product, collected from a donors possibly at increased risk for vCJD only, was distributed USA JULY 2010






(Laughter.)





atypical L-type BASE BSE California 2012




SUMMARY REPORT CALIFORNIA BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY CASE INVESTIGATION JULY 2012



Summary Report BSE 2012


Executive Summary








Saturday, August 4, 2012



*** Final Feed Investigation Summary - California BSE Case - July 2012



(see tons and tons of banned highly suspect mad cow feed in ALABAMA 2006, and 2007, one decade post partial and voluntary mad cow feed ban in the USA, see where 10,000,000 pounds of blood laced banned meat and bone meal was fed out into commerce)







Saturday, August 4, 2012


Update from APHIS Regarding Release of the Final Report on the BSE Epidemiological Investigation






Tuesday, November 02, 2010


BSE - ATYPICAL LESION DISTRIBUTION (RBSE 92-21367) statutory (obex only) diagnostic criteria CVL 1992






Saturday, December 15, 2012


Bovine spongiform encephalopathy: the effect of oral exposure dose on attack rate and incubation period in cattle -- an update 5 December 2012







Thursday, February 14, 2013


The Many Faces of Mad Cow Disease Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy BSE and TSE prion disease







Tuesday, March 5, 2013


Use of Materials Derived From Cattle in Human Food and Cosmetics; Reopening of the Comment Period FDA-2004-N-0188-0051 (TSS SUBMISSION)


FDA believes current regulation protects the public from BSE but reopens comment period due to new studies








CJD Incidents Panel to be disbanded



The Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) Incidents Panel will be dissolved at the end of March 2013. Subsequently, the following arrangements will apply:



From 1 April 2013, responsibility for investigating, assessing and managing CJD incidents (and where appropriate notifying patients) will be with local trusts, health boards and health protection teams in the same way as most other incidents that place patients at risk; National guidance on CJD incident management will be available to support this and will be published on the legacy Health Protection Agency website [1]. Novel issues that arise with respect to CJD risk management and infection control can be referred to the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens (ACDP) Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Risk Management Sub-Group; Long term public health surveillance of CJD exposures will continue and trusts, health boards and health protection teams are asked to continue reporting the occurrence of incidents to Public Health England, in particular if they involve a patient notification exercise; Infection control guidance from the Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy Risk Management Subgroup (ACDP TSE RM SG, formerly the TSE Working Group) to reduce the risk of spread of TSEs in healthcare and community settings can be found at: http://www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/11/acdp-guidance/. Further/background information:


What is a CJD Incident? – A surgical incident has occurred when a patient with, or at increased risk of, any human prion disease, including all forms of CJD, has had an invasive procedure involving high or medium infectivity tissues for CJD and where TSE instrument precautions were not taken. Patients subsequently exposed to the implicated instruments may need to be informed that they are at increased risk of CJD, depending on the specific circumstances. Questions relating to the interpretation of the guidance should be sent to the HPA/PHE CJD team either via the CJD mailbox cjd@hpa.org.uk (cjd@phe.gov.uk, after 1 April 2013), or to: katy.sinka@hpa.org.uk, emma.hollis@phe.gov.uk.


Note


1. The guidance will be available on the HPA website: Topics › Infectious Diseases › Infections A-Z › Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) › CJD Guidance and Advice.







Sunday, February 10, 2013


Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) biannual update (February 2013) Infection report/CJD






Thursday, January 17, 2013


TSE guidance, surgical, dental, blood risk factors, Part 4 Infection control of CJD, vCJD and other human prion diseases in healthcare and community settings (updated January 2013)






Monday, December 10, 2012


Report on the monitoring of ruminants for the presence of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) in the EU in 2011 Final version 18 October 2012






Friday, August 24, 2012


Iatrogenic prion diseases in humans: an update






Friday, August 10, 2012


Incidents of Potential iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) biannual update (July 2012)







Thursday, July 05, 2012


Incidence of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease diagnoses and deaths in the UK January 1994 – December 2011







Thursday, April 12, 2012


Health professions and risk of sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, 1965 to 2010


Eurosurveillance, Volume 17, Issue 15, 12 April 2012


Research articles







Wednesday, August 24, 2011


All Clinically-Relevant Blood Components Transmit Prion Disease following a > Single Blood Transfusion: A Sheep Model of vCJD







Saturday, March 23, 2013


CJD Incidents Panel to be disbanded







Tuesday, March 05, 2013


A closer look at prion strains Characterization and important implications Prion


7:2, 99–108; March/April 2013; © 2013 Landes Bioscience







Thursday, February 21, 2013


National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center Cases Examined January 16, 2013





16 YEAR OLD SPORADIC FFI ?



Monday, January 14, 2013


Gambetti et al USA Prion Unit change another highly suspect USA mad cow victim to another fake name i.e. sporadic FFI at age 16 CJD Foundation goes along with this BSe





Monday, December 31, 2012


Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease and Human TSE Prion Disease in Washington State, 2006–2011-2012





Tuesday, December 25, 2012


CREUTZFELDT JAKOB TSE PRION DISEASE HUMANS END OF YEAR REVIEW DECEMBER 25, 2012





Tuesday, June 26, 2012


Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease Human TSE report update North America, Canada, Mexico, and USDA PRION UNIT as of May 18, 2012


type determination pending Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (tdpCJD), is on the rise in Canada and the USA





Wednesday, June 13, 2012


MEXICO IS UNDER or MIS DIAGNOSING CREUTZFELDT JAKOB DISEASE AND OTHER PRION DISEASE SOME WITH POSSIBLE nvCJD







*** The discovery of previously unrecognized prion diseases in both humans and animals (i.e., Nor98 in small ruminants) demonstrates that the range of prion diseases might be wider than expected and raises crucial questions about the epidemiology and strain properties of these new forms. We are investigating this latter issue by molecular and biological comparison of VPSPr, GSS and Nor98.





VARIABLY PROTEASE-SENSITVE PRIONOPATHY IS TRANSMISSIBLE ...price of prion poker goes up again $


OR-10: Variably protease-sensitive prionopathy is transmissible in bank voles


Romolo Nonno,1 Michele Di Bari,1 Laura Pirisinu,1 Claudia D’Agostino,1 Stefano Marcon,1 Geraldina Riccardi,1 Gabriele Vaccari,1 Piero Parchi,2 Wenquan Zou,3 Pierluigi Gambetti,3 Umberto Agrimi1 1Istituto Superiore di Sanità; Rome, Italy; 2Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche, Università di Bologna; Bologna, Italy; 3Case Western Reserve University; Cleveland, OH USA


Background. Variably protease-sensitive prionopathy (VPSPr) is a recently described “sporadic”neurodegenerative disease involving prion protein aggregation, which has clinical similarities with non-Alzheimer dementias, such as fronto-temporal dementia. Currently, 30 cases of VPSPr have been reported in Europe and USA, of which 19 cases were homozygous for valine at codon 129 of the prion protein (VV), 8 were MV and 3 were MM. A distinctive feature of VPSPr is the electrophoretic pattern of PrPSc after digestion with proteinase K (PK). After PK-treatment, PrP from VPSPr forms a ladder-like electrophoretic pattern similar to that described in GSS cases. The clinical and pathological features of VPSPr raised the question of the correct classification of VPSPr among prion diseases or other forms of neurodegenerative disorders. Here we report preliminary data on the transmissibility and pathological features of VPSPr cases in bank voles.


Materials and Methods. Seven VPSPr cases were inoculated in two genetic lines of bank voles, carrying either methionine or isoleucine at codon 109 of the prion protein (named BvM109 and BvI109, respectively). Among the VPSPr cases selected, 2 were VV at PrP codon 129, 3 were MV and 2 were MM. Clinical diagnosis in voles was confirmed by brain pathological assessment and western blot for PK-resistant PrPSc (PrPres) with mAbs SAF32, SAF84, 12B2 and 9A2.


Results. To date, 2 VPSPr cases (1 MV and 1 MM) gave positive transmission in BvM109. Overall, 3 voles were positive with survival time between 290 and 588 d post inoculation (d.p.i.). All positive voles accumulated PrPres in the form of the typical PrP27–30, which was indistinguishable to that previously observed in BvM109 inoculated with sCJDMM1 cases.


In BvI109, 3 VPSPr cases (2 VV and 1 MM) showed positive transmission until now. Overall, 5 voles were positive with survival time between 281 and 596 d.p.i.. In contrast to what observed in BvM109, all BvI109 showed a GSS-like PrPSc electrophoretic pattern, characterized by low molecular weight PrPres. These PrPres fragments were positive with mAb 9A2 and 12B2, while being negative with SAF32 and SAF84, suggesting that they are cleaved at both the C-terminus and the N-terminus. Second passages are in progress from these first successful transmissions.


Conclusions. Preliminary results from transmission studies in bank voles strongly support the notion that VPSPr is a transmissible prion disease. Interestingly, VPSPr undergoes divergent evolution in the two genetic lines of voles, with sCJD-like features in BvM109 and GSS-like properties in BvI109.


The discovery of previously unrecognized prion diseases in both humans and animals (i.e., Nor98 in small ruminants) demonstrates that the range of prion diseases might be wider than expected and raises crucial questions about the epidemiology and strain properties of these new forms. We are investigating this latter issue by molecular and biological comparison of VPSPr, GSS and Nor98.







Wednesday, March 28, 2012


VARIABLY PROTEASE-SENSITVE PRIONOPATHY IS TRANSMISSIBLE, price of prion poker goes up again $






Thursday, April 4, 2013


Variably protease-sensitive prionopathy in the UK: a retrospective review 1991–2008


Brain (2013) 136 (4): 1102-1115. doi: 10.1093/brain/aws366






Sunday, March 31, 2013


Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease CJD worlds youngest documented victim, 11 years old, shall we pray








Wednesday, April 24, 2013


Dissociation between Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) Infectivity and Proteinase K-Resistant PrPSc Levels in Peripheral Tissue from a Murine Transgenic Model of TSE Disease







Sunday, August 21, 2011


The British disease, or a disease gone global, The TSE Prion Disease


(see video here)







U.S.A. HIDING MAD COW DISEASE VICTIMS AS SPORADIC CJD ?


(see video at bottom)






Sunday, September 6, 2009


MAD COW USA 1997


(SEE SECRET VIDEO)







Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Public Health Crisis

















Sunday, August 09, 2009


CJD...Straight talk with...James Ironside...and...Terry Singeltary... 2009







BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY YOUR LOCAL CATTLE DEALERS AND LOBBYIEST EVERYWHERE...




IN A NUT SHELL ;


(Adopted by the International Committee of the OIE on 23 May 2006)


11. Information published by the OIE is derived from appropriate declarations made by the official Veterinary Services of Member Countries. The OIE is not responsible for inaccurate publication of country disease status based on inaccurate information or changes in epidemiological status or other significant events that were not promptly reported to the Central Bureau,






i pulled this comment off another board about the OIE and all it's lobby groups...tss


Having been to their offices in Paris and talked personally with the Head of the Animal Test Section, you would choke if you knew how many lobby groups attend that office daily. There is a steady stream of paid lobby groups that have one goal in life and that is to sway the Section Heads of each department within the OIE to suit the needs of different juristictions around the world, which curiously enough, also includes the USA and Canada. Anyone can go there and chat with them - providing they can privide valid cause to be let in. To say that the only goal of the OIE is animal health is actually only part of their function. They are more than that and my discussions with Dr. Diaz there has showed me that. But to blindly make a statement regarding what they do when you have no idea what they actually do is like eating the skin of the orange and not knowing what is actually under. Interstingly you state that the US Government applied pressure (to the OIE) I assume and that is a great example of the lobby groups doing their job. So, at the end of the day, one can safely assume that it is the pressure applied by certain influential lobby groups that will determine a likely aoutcome to an apparent OIE directive. Man alive, isn't it great to live in a democracy wherein the people get to make the choices and not just some "other" interested party or group - say like........Cargyll or Tyson for example?


So, one last question, question?


Who wags the tail of that dog?? And for what reason other than one that is purely associated with trade and international agreements and greed?


Location: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada


Occupation: CEO of BSE Prion Solutions Inc.


Interests: Prion Diseases and Live Animal Testing


end...tss





Tuesday, July 17, 2012


O.I.E. BSE, CWD, SCRAPIE, TSE PRION DISEASE Final Report of the 80th General Session, 20 - 25 May 2012







Wednesday, May 25, 2011


O.I.E. Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission and prion (TSE) disease reporting 2011


----- Original Message -----


From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr.


To: BSE-L@LISTS.AEGEE.ORG


Cc: trade@oie.int ; oie@oie.int ; f.diaz@oie.int ; scientific.dept@oie.int ; cjdvoice@yahoogroups.com ; BLOODCJD@YAHOOGROUPS.COM



Sent: Tuesday, May 24, 2011 2:24 PM


Subject: O.I.E. Terrestrial Animal Health Standards Commission and prion (TSE) disease reporting 2011






Saturday, December 18, 2010


OIE Global Conference on Wildlife Animal Health and Biodiversity - Preparing for the Future (TSE AND PRIONS) Paris (France), 23-25 February 2011






Monday, November 23, 2009


BSE GBR RISK ASSESSMENTS UPDATE NOVEMBER 23, 2009 COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES AND O.I.E. COMMISSION DECISION of 11 November 2009 amending the Annex to Decision 2007/453/EC as regards the BSE status of Chile, Colombia and Japan (notified under document C(2009) 8590)






Tuesday, January 1, 2008


BSE OIE USDA


Subject: OIE BSE RECOMMENDATION FOR USA, bought and paid for by your local cattle dealers i.e. USDA


Date: May 14, 2007 at 9:00 am PST


OIE BSE RECOMMENDATION FOR USA, bought and paid for by your local cattle dealers i.e. USDA


STATEMENT BY DR. RON DEHAVEN REGARDING OIE RISK RECOMMENDATION


March 9, 2007






Tuesday, November 02, 2010


IN CONFIDENCE


The information contained herein should not be disseminated further except on the basis of "NEED TO KNOW".


BSE - ATYPICAL LESION DISTRIBUTION (RBSE 92-21367) statutory (obex only) diagnostic criteria CVL 1992






2009 UPDATE ON ALABAMA AND TEXAS MAD COWS 2005 and 2006






Comments on technical aspects of the risk assessment were then submitted to FSIS.


Comments were received from Food and Water Watch, Food Animal Concerns Trust (FACT), Farm Sanctuary, R-CALF USA, Linda A Detwiler, and Terry S. Singeltary.


This document provides itemized replies to the public comments received on the 2005 updated Harvard BSE risk assessment. Please bear the following points in mind:






Owens, Julie


From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr. [flounder9@verizon.net]


Sent: Monday, July 24, 2006 1:09 PM


To: FSIS RegulationsComments


Subject: [Docket No. FSIS-2006-0011] FSIS Harvard Risk Assessment of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)


Page 1 of 98







FSIS, USDA, REPLY TO SINGELTARY







U.S.A. 50 STATE BSE MAD COW CONFERENCE CALL Jan. 9, 2001
















































Friday, April 19, 2013


APHIS 2013 Stakeholder Meeting (March 2013) BSE TSE PRION









TSS