Cattle Mutilations and TSE

We present evidence that a correlation exists between reports of animal mutilation and the emergence of a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) epidemic in North America.

* We show that sharp instruments are used in animal mutilations. Our data contradict the conclusions of the 1980 Rommel Report that claimed predators and scavengers could explain reports of cattle mutilations.

* Using data obtained from a NIDS nationwide survey of bovine veterinarian practitioners, we show that certain organs are preferentially removed during animal mutilations.

* We focus attention on the temporal and geographical overlaps between the animal mutilation and TSE epidemics in NE Colorado. The most highly publicized TSE epidemic in North America, chronic wasting disease (CWD), emerged in NE Colorado in the late 1960s.

* We show evidence that patterns of animal mutilations conform to covert but classical wild life sampling methodologies for infectious diseases.

* The organs that are preferentially removed during animal mutilations, the eye, tongue, large intestine (anus) and reproductive tissues, harbor high levels of prions in several species.

* We show evidence in support of an epidemic of prion disease that is both sub-clinical in cattle and clinical in deer/elk in North America.

* We describe evidence from two laboratories that a number of prion diseases in humans are misdiagnosed as Alzheimerâs disease and therefore currently escape detection.

* The historical record shows that high levels of infectious TSEs were imported from New Guinea into research facilities at Fort Detrick and Bethesda, Maryland after 1958 and were used for intensive cross-species infectivity experiments.

* We hypothesize that animal mutilations represent both a TSE-disease sampling operation on domestic animals AND a graphic warning that the beef and venison food chain is compromised.

Overall, the evidence suggests that animal mutilations are a long-term, covert, prion disease sampling operation by unknown perpetrators who are aware of a substantial contamination of the beef and venison food supply. Although this paper presents evidence in favor of a motive for animal mutilations, there is still insufficient evidence to identify the perpetrators.

The hypotheses described in this paper yield a number of testable predictions. Examining these predictions in the coming months and years is increasingly urgent because they have considerable public health implications. Secondly the recent (May 2003) announcement of a case of mad-cow disease in Alberta, Canada has brought the issue of the contamination of the human food chain into sharper focus.

With respect to the TSE hypothesis, NIDS, because of a lack of evidence cannot identify the perpetrators of animal mutilations. We hypothesize a motive for animal mutilations. As of June 2003, we have no position regarding the identity of the perpetrators.

The full report can be found on the 'Whats New' section of the NIDS web site: <http://www.nidsci.org/>http://www.nidsci.org