Emergency Diseases

David Honig honig at sprynet.com
Thu Sep 27 08:43:56 PDT 2001


At 10:38 AM 9/27/01 -0700, John Young wrote:
>The Department of Agriculture today issued an emergency
>announcement about the spread of "chronic wasting disease"
>(CWD) among cattle and deer in the American West:
>
>  http://cryptome.org/doa092701.txt
>
>The disease can be fatal to humans. Is there any tie of CWD to
>cowpox?

CWD is an american game-animal version of Mad Cow, ie, BSE.  Think of it as
Mad Elk
Disease.  There was a _Science_ article on it in the last 2 years, 
maybe someone with online access to that journal can find the ref.

Basically because the american animals that get it do not spread it
readily (vs. densely farmed cattle and sheep which are taken to common
locations like auction houses) and only a few hunters will die, its
not considered a threat of the same scale as BSE.

Cowpox is a virus.  CWD (& BSE & kuru & Crutzfeld-Jacob=mad human disease)
are all 
infectious proteins aka 'prions'.    Cannibalism is taboo for a reason.





More information about the cypherpunks-legacy mailing list