bessie

an interesting article was posted in the boston globe today regarding mad cow disease. a scottish expert in public health medicine cast some serious doubt on the relationship of mad cow disease(bse) and the human form creutzfeldt-jakob disease. according to venters recent evidence casts serious doubts on the case of the supposed relationship of the 2 diseases. the epidemiological evidence just did not stack up he stated. there are special and exacting criteria used by scientists to assess links between cause and effect for a specific disease. when these rules were applied to the relationship of bse and cjd the evidence is weak at best.. there is no direct evidence that the 2 diseases are the same but in different hosts. the responsible agent of bse is a prion and the prions in animals and humans are different. he pointed out also that ingestion is a very ineffecient manner of transmission of prions. there were other inconsistances observed regarding the analysis of the epidemilogical evidence. frankly to us scientists this makes more sense and we have seen conclusions inappropriatly drawn on weak evidence before. at this point i feel that a person shpuld feel reasonably safe in eating a reasonable amoount of beef safely and not sucuum to unwarranted fears that are unsupported

Elizabeth

Dear bessie:
i just came back from Paria and I can assure you that I wasn't about to take any chances eating beef! Every French person seems to think that its fine to eat it (most diners ate precisely that) - but its just not worth it!

Elizabeth

oops - i meant to write 'paris'! jetlag!
liz

bessie

im glad you had a good trip but all im pointing out is scientific evidence is better than guessing. aside from the health issues of eating to much fat, an occasional steak or burger is warranted without the unnecessary fear. this type of overkill has been seen before ie atomic bomb shelters inn the 50's and the y2k scare. just as they proved foundless, this will join thast group

wanderer

that information was interesting and certainly puts a new slant on a problem that has generated more contraversy and misinformation than most recent posts. many will not believe this but i will tend to put my faith in the scientific method over hearsay

edward

has there been any confirmation of this article yet? it seems to make better sense than many of the previous threads based on conjecture.