3 ms·

weird that the bulk of patients are in france and UK, does that indicate diet?

by jokoon 3y ago

EdwardDiego 3y ago
All the researchers are all UK based, and the UK became verrrry interested in prion diseases due to a very bad habit UK agriculture had gotten into of incorporating culled animals (other cattle, which furthered the spread, but the ultimate cause was likely grinding up sheep infected with scrapies, an ovine spongiform encephalopathy) supplementary cattle feed for animals later eaten by humans which led to the CJD outbreak in the UK. European agriculture also had a similar bad habit, but maybe less sheep or scrapies or something? France probably imported British beef and so were affected also. They certainly banned it the longest afterwards. And I was about to do the usual Kiwi thing of "Just let the cows eat grass, duh", but every Western country tends to supplementary feed dairy cows, including mine, except we prefer to use palm kernel, thus promoting deforestation in Borneo, yay! But it turns out a lot of British beef comes from their dairy herds, so "just feed the beef cattle grass" wouldn't have helped.
- the_optimist 3y ago
  A compelling book on this topic: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deadly-Feasts/Richard-Rhodes/9780684844251 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deadly-Feasts/Richard...
- coffeebeqn 3y ago
  Cows are also fed “sewage solids” from water treatment plants. Now that I think about it maybe I should stop eating / drinking cow products
  - jokoon 3y ago
    sorry what do you have a source?
  - lazide 3y ago
    Those are hazmat, contaminated with heavy metals among many other things, and need to be disposed of in specific ways - none of which involve consumption. Cite?
sidewndr46 3y ago
My understanding is France has a history of ignoring risks, including intentional spread of HIV to patients: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_blood_scandal_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_blood_scandal_in_...
sschueller 3y ago
Interesting since the UK was part of the huge Mad Cow (BSE a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob) disaster[1] in Europe back in the 90s which introduced new rules in Switzerland requiring marking origin and banning certain feeding methods. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_BSE_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_BSE_outbreak

weird that the bulk of patients are in france and UK, does that indicate diet?

by jokoon 3y ago

weird that the bulk of patients are in france and UK, does that indicate diet?

All the researchers are all UK based, and the UK became verrrry interested in prion diseases due to a very bad habit UK agriculture had gotten into of incorporating culled animals (other cattle, which furthered the spread, but the ultimate cause was likely grinding up sheep infected with scrapies, an ovine spongiform encephalopathy) supplementary cattle feed for animals later eaten by humans which led to the CJD outbreak in the UK. European agriculture also had a similar bad habit, but maybe less sheep or scrapies or something? France probably imported British beef and so were affected also. They certainly banned it the longest afterwards. And I was about to do the usual Kiwi thing of "Just let the cows eat grass, duh", but every Western country tends to supplementary feed dairy cows, including mine, except we prefer to use palm kernel, thus promoting deforestation in Borneo, yay! But it turns out a lot of British beef comes from their dairy herds, so "just feed the beef cattle grass" wouldn't have helped.

the_optimist 3y ago
A compelling book on this topic: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deadly-Feasts/Richard-Rhodes/9780684844251 https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deadly-Feasts/Richard...
coffeebeqn 3y ago
Cows are also fed “sewage solids” from water treatment plants. Now that I think about it maybe I should stop eating / drinking cow products
- jokoon 3y ago
  sorry what do you have a source?
- lazide 3y ago
  Those are hazmat, contaminated with heavy metals among many other things, and need to be disposed of in specific ways - none of which involve consumption. Cite?

sidewndr46 3y ago

My understanding is France has a history of ignoring risks, including intentional spread of HIV to patients: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_blood_scandal_in_France https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_blood_scandal_in_...

sschueller 3y ago

Interesting since the UK was part of the huge Mad Cow (BSE a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob) disaster[1] in Europe back in the 90s which introduced new rules in Switzerland requiring marking origin and banning certain feeding methods. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_BSE_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_BSE_outbreak