From: jdennya@aol.com
From: thexc@xxx.com (Jana Janus)
http://www.utne.com/webwatch/
>
> Paul Kail, FreezerBox
>
> Forget cattle feed made from ground sheep parts, there may well be a
> link between certain pesticides and Mad Cow disease, says Paul Kail in
> FreezerBox. Kail a British nueroscientist and animal rights advocate,
> tells the story of Mark Purdey, an organic dairy farmer from Somerset,
> England, who has "suffered constant harassment" since he first suggested
> publicly that such a link might exist. "Purdey believes," writes Kail, "
> that the root cause of BSE is an imbalance of magnesium and copper,
> exacerbated, in the case of the UK, by the use of a highly toxic
> pesticide known as Phosmet," a powerful nerve toxin that is "related to
> the drug Thalidamide, which causes birth defects." Purdey noticed that
> his cows were not getting Mad Cow disease, unlike cows on neighboring
> farms, which were treated with Phosmet to battle a common parasite.
> Purdey, who used natural remedies on his cows, began to suspect a
> connection when he bought a cow with the disease from another herd and
> found that its symptoms improved when he injected it with oxime, an
> antidote to pesticide poisoning. "A week after the British government
> first announced the link between" Mad Cow disease and its human cousin,
> Zeneca, the maker of Phosmet "sold the patent for phosmet to a PO Box
> company in Arizona, apparently to avoid potential legal action." Among
> the strange events surrounding Purdey, Kail notes: "Both his vet and the
> lawyer defending his case died in suspicious road accidents. When an
> article about his work appeared in the 'Independent', a national British
> newspaper, his telephone lines were cut" making it impossible for the
> media to follow up with him. "His farm house was burnt down just before
> he was about to move in. And "when he travels around the country to talk
> about his theory, he is constantly trailed."
> --Leif Utne
>
> ***
> http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/2001/01/bse
>
> Mad Cow Disease: The Chemical Industry Plays Dirty BY DR. PAUL KAIL
> ACTIVISM | 01.17.01
>
> BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), or Mad Cow Disease, and its
> human form, nvCJD (New Variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease), are incurable
> brain disorders. Holes appear in victims' brains, then they become
> demented and die. The diseases are not caused by a virus or a bacterium,
> but by a mysterious type of twisted protein, known as a "prion". The
> prion can propagate itself by causing other proteins to twist into the
> same shape. Prions can be passed on by eating the flesh of another
> animal, and are resistant to cooking and digestion.
>
> A theory about how prions are formed suggests that organophosphate
> pesticides could be partly to blame. Two people have already died
> defending this theory, apparently at the hands of professional assassins
> working either for the British government or the chemical industry. So
> the theory needs to be taken seriously.
>
> BSE first appeared in the UK in 1985. Since then, the disease has
> affected half of the cow herds in the country. New Variant CJD also
> first appeared in the UK, ten years later: to date, around 90 people
> have died from it. Both BSE and CDJ are beginning to spread throughout
> the rest of Europe; today, 30 European countries have had exports of
> their cattle banned. The diseases have the potential to destroy the
> entire European cattle industry, and kill thousands of people. The death
> toll from nvCJD is increasing by 35% per year, and the disease has a
> gestation period of twenty years. Some projections suggest that hundreds
> of thousands of people could eventually die from it.
>
> Given the huge amount at stake, one might expect that any credible
> theory would be welcomed. Yet Mark Purdey, a British farmer from
> Somerset, has suffered constant harassment and has had to support his
> research from his own pocket. Purdey has a theory which might explain
> the mystery of why BSE and new variant nvCJD started in the UK, and why
> they are so much more serious there. However, since he went public with
> his ideas, some rather unfortunate things have happened:
>
> 1.Both his vet and the lawyer defending his case died in
> suspicious road accidents. His second lawyer also had a car crash,
> but survived.
>
> 2.When an article about his work appeared in the "Independent", a
> national British newspaper, his telephone lines were cut. He was
> therefore unable to take follow up calls from other papers and
> television stations.
>
> 3.His farm house was burnt down just before he was about to move
> in.
>
> 4.His science library was destroyed by a collapsing barn.
>
> 5.When he travels around the country to talk about his theory, he
> is constantly trailed.
>
> Purdey believes that the root cause of BSE is an imbalance of magnesium
> and copper, exacerbated, in the case of the UK, by the use of a highly
> toxic pesticide known as phosmet. Phosphet is an organophosphate nerve
> toxin, originally developed by the Nazis. It is also related to the drug
> Thalidamide, which causes birth defects.
>
> Phosmet is made by Zeneca, a subdivision of the British chemical giant
> ICI. A week after the British government first announced the link
> between BSE and nvCJD, Zeneca sold the patent for phosmet to a PO Box
> company in Arizona, apparently to avoid potential legal action.
>
> The theory started when Purdey noticed that his cows, unlike those of
> his neighbours, were not getting BSE. Cows often suffer from a parasitic
> infection known as warble fly. Since Purdey is an organic farmer, he
> treated his herd with derris root powder, a natural remedy. Other
> farmers were using phosmet, which was later made compulsory throughout
> the UK. When Purdey bought an infected cow from another herd, he was
> able to reduce the symptoms of BSE by injecting oxime, which is an
> antidote to pesticide poisoning. However, officials from MAFF (the
> Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) turned up to kill the cow
> before the experiment could be completed.
>
> As well as the link to phosmet use, Purdey discovered that brain
> diseases such as BSE and nvCJD appear in clusters in many places around
> the world. The link seems to be a lack of copper and an excess of
> manganese.
>
> For example, in some areas of Colorado and Wyoming, 4-6% of deer and elk
> suffer from CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease), which is related to nvCJD.
> These animals live in areas where the soils are very high in manganese.
> In Slovakia, where the incidence of nvCJD is a thousand times higher
> than normal, most of the victims live near a glass making plant (where
> manganese is used) or else down-wind of one of two large ferro-manganese
> factories.
>
> In the UK, two factors have increased the amount of manganese which cows
> consume. Until 1988, cows were fed chicken manure. The chicken had been
> fed manganese to strengthen their eggs, but 98% of it ended up in the
> manure. In addition, a fungicide rich in manganese was used on crops at
> that time.
>
> According to Purdey, a lack of copper and an excess of manganese causes
> proteins in the nervous system of foetal cattle to change into the
> abnormal prion forms found in BSE and nvCJD. Phosmet facilitates this
> process by binding to copper, and therefore reducing the amount
> available to brain tissues.
>
> Recently, Dr David Brown, a chemist at Cambridge University, showed that
> manganese can replace copper in brain proteins, thereby transforming
> them into prions. Dr Brown lost his funding, and was not able to
> continue the research.
>
> The BSE crisis started in the UK, and that country still has the highest
> rate of the disease. Purdey believes that this was because the British
> government was the only one to enforce systemic phosmet at such a high
> dose. Phosmet is used elsewhere, but either on a voluntary basis, or at
> a much lower dose, or non-systemically.
>
> However, there is a long lag between the peak of phosmet use and the
> incidence of BSE. Purdey says that this is for two reasons. First, cows
> are most susceptible to phosmet damage when they are in the womb.
> Second, phosmet has to reach a certain concentration in the food-chain
> before it has an effect.
>
> Quite apart from the direct attacks on Mr Purdey, the chemical industry
> have launched a media campaign to discredit his research. Although MAFF
> claims that any credible theories for BSE will receive funding, Purdey
> has received nothing.
>
> The effort that the chemical industry has apparently gone to to
> discredit Mark Purdey mirrors the experiences of Alice Stewart, the
> scientist who first showed the link between radiation and cancer.
> Scientists who supported her had their cars rammed. Maybe in this case
> as well, the truth will come out in the end.
>
>
> Dr. Paul Kail has a Ph.D. in nueroscience from Cambridge University and
> is founder and Director of the Animal Consciousness Foundation, which
> can be reached via www.animals.org.