Is Mad Cow Disease Caused by a Bacteria?
Transmissible spongiform enchephalopathies (TSE’s), include bovine spongiform encephalopathy (also called BSE or “mad cow disease”), Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, and scrapie in sheep. They remain a mystery, their cause hotly debated. But between 1994 and 1996, 12 people in England came down with CJD, the human form of mad cow, and all had eaten beef from suspect cows. Here resercher/internist Lawrence Broxmeyer MD offers a new approach to this disease.
(PRWEB) May 31, 2005 -- Lead researcher Lawrence Broxmeyer MD, who has
appeared in The Journal of Infectious Diseases and other respected medical
journals isn’t satisfied with the current explanation for mad cow disease. [Is
mad cow disease caused by a bacteria? Medical Hypotheses (2004) 63,
731–739
“Current mad cow diagnosis”, said Lawrence Broxmeyer MD, “lies
solely in the detection of late appearing ‘prions’, an acronym for hypothesized,
gene-less, misfolded proteins, somehow claimed to cause the disease. Yet
laboratory preparations of prions contain other things, which could include
unidentified bacteria or viruses. Furthermore, the rigors of prion purification
alone, might, in and of themselves, have killed the causative virus or bacteria.
Therefore, even if samples appear to infect animals, it is impossible to prove
that prions are causative and not just the end result of an infectious
process.”
“Furthermore”, Lawrence Broxmeyer MD asserted, “Manuelidis
found viral-like particles, which even when separated from prions, were
responsible for spongiform STE’s. Subsequently, Lasmezas’s study showed that 55%
of mice injected with cattle BSE, and who came down with disease, had no
detectable prions. Still, incredibly, prions, are held as existing TSE dogma and
Heino Dringer, who did pioneer work on their nature, candidly predicts “it will
turn out that the prion concept is wrong.” Many animals that die of spongiform
TSE’s never show evidence of misfolded proteins, and Dr. Frank Bastian, of
Tulane, an authority, thinks the disorder is caused by the bacterial DNA he
found in this group of diseases.”
“Recently,” added Lawence Broxmeyer MD,
“Roels and Walravens isolated Mycobacterium bovis (bovine tuberculosis) from the
brain of a cow with the clinical and histopathological signs of mad cow.
Moreover, epidemiologic maps of the origins and peak incidence of mad cow
disease in the UK, where it all began, suggestively match those of England’s
areas of highest bovine tuberculosis, the Southwest. The neurotaxic potential
for cow tuberculosis was shown in pre-1960 England, where one quarter of all
tuberculous meningitis victims suffered from Mycobacterium bovis infection from
cows. And Harley’s study showed pathology identical to “mad cow” from systemic
M. bovis in cattle, causing a tuberculous spongiform encephalitis.”
“In
addition to all of this” said Lawrence Broxmeyer MD, prions have been described
as amyloid and in the past amyloid was usually the deposition that took place
due in the course of chronic inflammatory disease, mainly tuberculosis, its
usual precipitating cause.”
“M. bovis or cow tuberculosis, fowl
tuberculosis or Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis causes Johne’s
disease, a problem known and neglected in cattle and sheep for almost a century,
and rapidly emerging as the disease of the new millennium.” revealed Lawrence
Broxmeyer MD “Not only has M. paratuberculosis been found in human Crohn’s
disease, but both Crohn’s and Johne’s cross-react with the antigens of cattle
paratuberculosis. Furthermore, central neurologic manifestations of Crohn’s
disease are not unknown.”
Lawrence Broxmeyer MD sums up that “there is no
known disease which better fits into what is occurring in Mad Cow and the
spongiform enchephalopathies than bovine tuberculosis and its blood–brain
barrier penetrating, virus-like, cell-wall-deficient forms. It is for these
reasons that future research needs to be aimed in this direction.”
“In
his 1932 historical overview, Webb speculates that man was first introduced to
tuberculosis when he began domesticating cattle around 5000 B.C.. Thus one could
surmise that human tuberculosis originated by transfer of M. bovis, which has
the potential to infect humans, into the human body, where it adapted as the
tubercle bacillus”, Lawrence Broxmeyer MD related. “Garnier though, using
deletion analysis, recently questioned this, placing human M. tuberculosis as
having come first, and, having infected cows at the time of cattle domestication
10,000–15,000 years ago. At any rate, prior to that, the tuberculous bacilli,
always soil born, first infested and then infected an assortment of mammals,
both ruminants and primates.”
“Modern genetics has verified that DNA
between human (M. tuberculosis) and cow (M. bovis) tuberculosis are almost
identical, indicating they are virtually the same species.” said Lawrence
Broxmeyer MD. “Even in culture plates their appearance is similar.”
Once
the most prevalent infectious disease of cattle in the US, bovine TB caused more
losses among US farm animals in the early part of this century than all other
infectious diseases combined. And M. bovis still causes worldwide annual losses
to agriculture of $3 billion dollars. In his Nobel Prize address of 1901 Von
Behring stated 'As you know, tuberculosis in cattle is one of the most damaging
infectious diseases to affect agriculture'.”
“Today”, concluded Lawrence
Broxmeyer MD, “the greatest hindrance to finding a cure for TSE’s lies in the
very theory they have become embedded in. Santana’s oft quoted “he who does not
remember the past is condemned to relive it in the future” seems clear here.
Early twentieth century recognition of the spread of cow tuberculosis was
obvious and at one time American milk contained the words: “tuberculin tested,”
an epitaph to the up to 30% of human cases of pre-pasteurization Tuberculosis
caused by bovine or cow tuberculosis.”
Additional information, and
downloading this article by Lawrence Broxmeyer MD and his on-going research can
be found at:
http://medamericaresearch.org.
Distribution: Lawrence
Broxmeyer, Lawrence Broxmeyer MD, Dr. Lawrence Broxmeyer
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/5/prweb245900.htm