This is a long reading, but please check it out!!

Hey all-
I'm still resting and enjoying some time home with my family. I hope you all are enjoying your 4th of July weekend! Tomorrow will be my long run of 8 miles so I will do some yoga today to get my muscles flexible and ready to go. Wish me luck!

I've been doing more research on CJD and I would like you to read this article about the link between CJD & BSE (Mad Cow's Disease)and also check out the links below to see what the government is doing to monitor the issue. I was shocked to read the findings. I don't want all of you to think that I'm totally believing that my dad's CJD diagnosis is a direct result of eating contaminated meat. I know that the autopsy results say his form was "sporadic", but that really doesn't help at all. I know that there isn't always an explanation for the turns that life takes, but there is information out there that may help me find out more. Before I was just in a daze that my dad truly passed away and now I'm taking the initiative to understand what is being found or said about CJD. This is such a scary disease and I don't want anybody to have to go through what my dad endured. If we are all at risk and there are measures we can take lower that, then we need to know! Please read the information below.

Sincerely,
Lacy

MAD COW DISEASE Written by, Suzanne Sutton in 1997

Mad Cow Disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle, is an incurable spongy degenaration of the brain and central nervous system. A similar complex disease in humans, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), acts like an accelerated form of Alzheimer's, and is characterized by an irreversible degeneration of brain tissue-holes formed in the brain, disabling and finally killing the victim. The fear of this unusually cruel and fatal neurological disease has sent shock waves throughout Europe and around the globe, creating one of the biggest consumer panics ever experienced in the industrialized world.

Q. How do cattle and humans contract this disease?

A. For decades British and North American farmers have been feeding their beef and dairy cattle, which are of course herbivores, cheap protein supplements made from things which include sheep brains, spinal cords, and other animal parts. Sheep, as any farmer will testify, have for centuries carried scrapie--a fatal, degenerative brain disease, which is remarkably similar to Mad Cow Disease and CJD. It is feared that this disease can be transmitted to humans who eat meat from infected cattle.

Since 1989 Britain has banned sheep offal (the ground remains of the dead animal) from cattle feed. Indeed, all mammal tissue has been banned from all agricultural feed in that country, and, furthermore, the World Health Organization is now endorsing a ban for all countries. However, in the United States this practice continues up to the present time as a routine process, designed to boost milk and meat production. Indeed, offal from sheep, cattle and other animals, as well as animal feces, is routinely fed to American food animals (cattle, pigs, poultry and fish) in the form of rendered pellets, powder or meal. In addition, massive quantities of blood meal, bone meal and other animal byproducts find their way into food animal's feed. It is grossly unnatural and dangerous to feed blood and other animal parts to cattle, which are natural vegetarians. Animal diseases may very well be passed on in the process.

Various diseases may also be transmitted to human beings who eat infected animals. Indeed, from feed, to cow, to the human brain, appears to be the progression of Mad Cow Disease, which has leaped across the species barrier to become a varian of CJD.

Cattle with the disease show symptoms of staggering, drooling, aggression, and confused behavior, appearing to have gone "mad." Afflicted humans show symptoms similar to Alzheimer's disease--dementia, confusion, convulsions, loss of speech, sight, and hearing, and ending with a coma and death. This disease, one of the most mysterious known to human beings, is always fatal and there is no treatment for it. The incubation period seems to be four to thrty years.

The causative agent appears to be a deformed molecule called a "prion," (pronounced PREE-on), a mysterious and abnormal infectious protein. This strange-acting, never-before-seen infectious agent, which is neither a bacteria nor a virus, is distinct from anything encountered before--an infectious agent that defies the accepted rules of nature. Smaller than the tiniest virus, they do not contain nucleic acid which makes up the RNA and DNA that carry the genetic codes of normal viruses, bacteria, plants, cows, humans and virtually all other living things. Yet they are able to replicate and spread, but do not activate an immune response. Unfortunately, they are highly resistant to heat, UV light, radiation and most common chemical disinfectants.

Q. Surely the proper authorities in this country are taking actions to prevent this disease from gaining a foothold here. Is not this the case?

A. Tragically, this is not so. The very practice that apparently caused and fostered Mad Cow Disease in England--feeding cattle processed remains of other animals--is commonplace in America. The image of contented cows grazing on sweet grass and hay should forever be dispelled. No "Green Acres" here! Ground up carcasses of sheep, cows and other animals, including their tonsils, intestines, spinal cords, brains, spleens, and so on, are a regular part of the daily bill of fare of food animals, which are mass produced by intensive, risky, pro-duction-driven, farming methods. The poor aimals are crowded and confined by the thousands on factory-style farms. These, and other horrors of modern animal food production, give rise to various chronic, insidious, and complex groups of diseases.

Recently, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) considered a ban on feeding cows to cows. However, according to an internal USDA document, the agency dismissed the ban because "the cost to the livestock and tendering industries would be substantial."[1] Clearly, this governmental agency has placed the financial interests of the influential, multibillion-dollar livestock industry ahead of public health.

However, a ban on this procedure may not be the answer to the problem. Even in Great Britain, where a mandatory ban has been in effect since 1989, some farmers have illicitly been feeding their cattle rendered animal parts. This disturbing reality has always been the case. Any ban is totally dependent on individual and industrial compliance.

More information from this article can be found at this link: http://www.shepherds-rod-message.org/health/mad.html

These links below contain lots of information of the government's role in monitoring this disease.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06157r.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05101.pdf
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02183.pdf
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/MaeWanHo/bse.txt