Brain Trust: The Hidden Connection Between Mad Cow and Misdiagnosed Alzheimer's Disease

This book has caused me to re-examine my thinking about eating non-organic meat. First of all, let me state that I am not a vegetarian and, having been raised on a farm, have always been a beef eater. However, this book's analysis of the possiblity of a prion-tainted meat supply has caused me to explore other options to store purchased meat. While much of the evidence is anectdotal, it is compelling nonetheless. The author looks at brain wasting diseases among humans in New Guinea, sheep and cattle in Britain and deer and elk in America. He demonstrates a potential link between Mad Cow-like illnesses and the increase in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease in the United States, and has an interesting theory on outbreaks of cattle mutilations. Given the fact that these brain wasting diseases can take years to manifest themselves and that we are relying on a testing scheme by the USDA that covers less than one percent of the beef supply, it seems prudent to look for alternatives and press for more safeguards. The author points out that by turning herbivore cattle into cannibals by feeding them rendered beef byproducts as a low cost protein source, we may be responsible for an epidemic of Biblical proportions. I couldn't put this book down.

As a trained neurologist working at a school of medicine, I thought I had a fairly good understanding of BSE and its human counterpart, nvCJD. But clinical knowledge is only one piece of the puzzle. Drawing upon epidemiologic, forensic, political, medical, scientific, and historical sources, the author has provided a truly chilling account of the importation of prion disease samples from the small cannabalistic Fore tribe in New Guinea for U.S. animal experimentation in the 1950's and '60's, with credible links to the current epidemic of animal prion disease in North America (CWD or chronic wasting disease, TME or transmissible mink encephalopathy, and BSE), as well as the current epidemic of Alzheimer's disease in developed countries (i.e., those eating mass-produced livestock). The author also speculates that the cattle mutiliations in North America in the past few decades may have been programs designed for the surveillance of prions within the nation's food supply. Some disturbing points made in the book are: 1) 5 - 13% of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) cases that go to autopsy at university medical centers is actually misdiagnosed sporadic CJD (ref: Manuelidis, J. Pathology 1989), alarming since AD is so common and on the rise. 2) BSE, when transmitted to mice, cause neuropathological findings of nvCJD, but surprisingly, may also cause changes indistinguishable from sporadic CJD (ref: Collinge, EMBO Journal 2002 & Science 11/04)... in combination with the above, the implication is that a significant proportion of clinical AD may be due to BSE. 3) CWD (chronic wasting disease), a prion disease of wild animals such as deer and elk, has been spreading rapidly within the past few decades in North America. 4) If infected animals graze on a pasture, that pasture remains infectious to new animals for years... meaning that the disease will be difficult to contain, to say the least. 5) The "species barrier" is weaker than it sounds, i.e., most mammals and birds can contract it from each other. Working in a complex medical system, it's all too familiar to me the fact that families do not pursue post-mortems, diagnoses are not considered, and tests are never 100% reliable. The extra pecautions and higher risk are hindrances to autopsying a patient clinically diagnosed with CJD. Knowing the foibles of human nature, it is almost certain that enormous economic incentives for cattle ranchers and various government agencies have contributed to underreporting and underestimation the potential severity of the problem... which is a shame given that we have the benefit of having observed the same public health fiasco in the UK. It is common dogma that sporadic CJD is not related to nvCJD or BSE, but that statement may be mistaken in light of more current research such as the type cited in the book. I hope that if awareness is promoted via reading this book, suspicion and surveillance for the disease among veterinarians and physicians will increase, and a

If you've read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and the chapter on the meat industry in Molly Ivins' Bushwhacked, you are probably already worried about the safety of the meat you are eating. In Brain Trust, Colm Kelleher uncovers the chilling fact that bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE, popularly called "Mad Cow Disease") and its variants in other animals are much more prevalent in the United States than is commonly believed. The report this week of another case of BSE in the United States makes this book even more timely. Kelleher adeptly traces the history of the study of prion diseases from early research on Kuru among the indigenous peoples of New Guinea and scrapie in sheep to the recent outbreaks of chronic wasting disease among the North American deer population and BSE in Great Britain and now in the U.S. As a biochemist myself, I give Kelleher high marks for a lucid explanation of the bizarre fact that these diseases are spread not by viruses or bacteria, but by misfolded proteins, and this very characteristic contributes to its ability to easily cross the species barrier and survive under conditions that kill most infectious agents (e.g. cooking). In Kelleher's gripping analysis, BSE-tainted cattle are almost certainly entering the food supply, contrary to the assurances of the beef lobby and government agencies (in many cases led by individuals from the meat industry). Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the human neurodegenerative disease contracted from eating BSE-tainted meat, poses a serious threat to public health. In addition, the spread of chronic wasting disease may lead to hunters and others who eat venison to develop CJD. On occasion Kelleher gets a little bit speculative (if misdiagnosed CJD is responsible for the dramatic increase in Alzheimer's cases, wouldn't there be a broader age distribution of Alzheimer's cases?), and delves into "X-Files" conspiracy theory territory a few times. Clearly the USDA has clamored to keep a lid on the fact that we have a potential epidemic lurking in our nation's food supply (just read what some USDA spokespeople are saying in response to this week's news), and the British government's efforts to cover up BSE in their nation in the 1980s and 90s are well-documented. The tinfoil hat crowd may rejoice at the notion of cattle mutilations and black helicopters being involved in these government cover-ups, but I am a bit skeptical. To his credit, Kelleher is clear where the facts end and the speculation begins, and Brain Trust makes a strong case for improving government regulation and public awareness of the BSE issue. Read this and then recommend it to your Congressman or Senator!

Brain Trust has all the makings of a good horror novel. There are many deaths, cover-ups and even cannibalism. The only problem is that it was NOT a work of fiction by Stephen King. It is the horror story of how Mad Cow disease came to be discovered. This terrifying tale begins with researchers in Papua New Guinea studying the Fore people and the illness they were succumbing to called Kuru. The story unfolds over five decades and reveals the scary details of the spreading disease and the stark reality of how unsafe our food supply is. I distinctly remember the first time I heard about prions and it scared me terribly with good reason. Prions are not a virus or bacteria, but a protein with an odd shape that can apparently multiply and are zoonotic (passed between species). This book covers the history of how the various forms of prion disease (scrapie in sheep, chronic wasting disease in wildlife like deer, bovine spongiform encephalopathy in cows, and Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease in humans) came to be known. Included are the stories of the researchers, what is known to this point, and how it is spread including the details of the outbreak in England. We would be wise to heed to warnings of this book, in light of the recent confirmed case of mad cow in the U.S. The author also makes the link between misdiagnosed Alzheimer's disease and Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease. This book beautifully written and reads like a thrilling mystery, but is much more scary because it is real. I commend the Dr. Kelleher for his research on this topic and providing citizens with this overview. This is a must read for anyone concerned about the politics and safety of food. C.J. Wong, M.S.(Biology), M.S. (Lib. Info. Sci.) Editor, Organic Family Magazine