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Old 09-02-2005, 11:14 AM
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Mad Cow Disease Caused By Cattle Eating Human Remains?

Human Remains In Feed May Have Led To BSE In UK

Animal feed containing the remains of human bodies may have been responsible for the first case of mad cow disease, a new study has claimed.

The cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which is thought to have developed into the fatal human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and killed 80 people in the United Kingdom, is unknown.

But it is now being suggested the disease originated in bone meal from India that was contaminated with human corpses infected with CJD and fed to cows.

Since it emerged in the 1980s, scientists have thought BSE was caused by sheep scrapie or a previously undetected bovine transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE).

But researchers Professor Alan Colchester, of the University of Kent, and his daughter Nancy Colchester, formerly of the University of Edinburgh, found such theories "inadequate". Instead, they suggested that human CJD was the cause of BSE, that this was transmitted orally via animal feed and that the feed came from India.

Prof Colchester said sporadic CJD in humans is known worldwide: India has reported 85 cases over the past 37 years.

In a paper published yesterday in the Lancet, he suggested that, because of the poverty in India and the practice of disposing of bodies in the Ganges, bone collectors may have encountered human remains that were sold on for export.

"We know from time to time they must have incorporated human remains that were crushed locally and then processed in the UK," he said.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, Britain imported a huge amount of carcase parts of mammalian origin from India.

Prof Colchester said there had been reports of human remains found in European ports and, although these were ostensibly for use in fertiliser, it was known they were used in animal feed because of cost.

"We think over a long period there was an accumulated risk of an infected human corpse entering into the animal feed," he said.

Professor Richard Ironside, director of laboratories at the UK CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh, said the resistant nature of the agent that causes CJD meant it could survive transmission in human remains from India to the UK.

But he was more cautious about the likelihood of CJD-infected human remains getting into animal feed.

"What we have to establish is whether these imports of human remains occurred or not and, if they did occur, I would find that surprising and worrying to say the least, because it might have implications for diseases other than BSE."

Susarla Shankar, of India's National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore, also questioned the largely circumstantial evidence and called for further research.

"Scientists must proceed cautiously when hypothesising about a disease that has such wide geographic, cultural and religious implications," he said.
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