Sam or Mary Yancy on thu 1 jan 04
Not that I use bone ash, but I read somewhere recently that the mad cow disease also is transfered by the cow's bone marrow and that to get rid of the disease you had to take extra precautions like boil down the entore cow, evaporate the water and crush the remains into powder and then treat the remains like hazardous waste as the "prions" that cause the disease are virtually indestructable. Should there be some precautions taken when using bone ?? Experts?? Sam in Dalyt City
John Rodgers on thu 1 jan 04
In my reading about the "mad Cow" prions, it was stated that MC prions
do not multiply themselves, but that the mere presence of an MC prion
during formation of a new protein in the brain cell by the cell itself,
is sufficient to get that cell to produce a new protein altered to the
MC prion form. It is much like the hemaglobin in the red cells
preferring CO to O2, resulting in a malfuntion of it's oxygen carrying
role. In time, the brain cell is flooded with MC prions resulting in the
destruction, malfunction or shutdown of the cell. It appears the MC
prions, through this mechanism, multiply exponentially, and when this
happens on a large enough scale, then the symptoms of Mad Cow appear. It
is not reversible and is always fatal.
Regards,
John Rodgers
Chelsea, AL
Kathy Forer wrote:
> I just read this in a letter to the editor today:
> The infectious agents in mad cow disease, prion proteins, are
> naturally occurring. They become lethal only when their structure is
> altered and they somehow induce the alteration of other prion
> proteins, leading to the gradual deterioration of brain tissue as
> seen in Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
> http://nytimes.com/2004/01/01/opinion/L01COWW.html
>
> It would seem then prions are normally occurring proteins, not a
> specific invisible agent that lurks so frighteningly. Though they
> remain a "mystery protein" and all diseases of the prion are fatal,
> prions probably do things other than just disease.
> http://www.nature.com/nsu/031229/031229-2.html
>
> Kathy in NJ
>
>
> On Jan 1, 2004, at 1:48 PM, Susan Setley wrote:
>
>> In a message dated 1/1/04 12:46:21 PM, satima@PACBELL.NET writes:
>>
>>
>>> Not that I use bone ash, but I read somewhere recently that the mad cow
>>> disease also is transfered by the cow's bone marrow and that to get
>>> rid of the
>>> disease you had to take extra precautions like boil down the entore
>>> cow,
>>> evaporate the water and crush the remains into powder and then
>>> treat the remains
>>> like hazardous waste as the "prions" that cause the disease are
>>> virtually
>>> indestructable. Should there be some precautions taken when using
>>> bone ??
>>> Experts?? Sam in Dalyt City
>>>
>>
>> Don't eat the bone ash. You can only get the prions in your system by
>> eating
>> them.
>
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iandol on fri 2 jan 04
Dear Sam Yancy,
? Prions ? Jargon!
Elaborate Please.
Most biological entities based on protein are destroyed, (Jargon - =
De-natured) by heat, especially when treated in hot pressurised steam =
ovens (Jargon - Autoclaves). They work at +100 =BA C.
If "Prions" are protein based they will be inactivated. If you do not =
believe this do not enter a hospital for any surgery.
Bone Ash will have been heated to at least 500 =BA C to eliminate all =
carbon based residues.
Should you fear some threat when you intend using Bone Ash treat it as =
though it were Silica or Asbestos.
Best regards.
Ivor Lewis. Redhill, South Australia
Janet Kaiser on fri 2 jan 04
FYI it is not the marrow which is cause for concern. It is the
brain and spinal cord. Beyond that, I do not believe that potters
need worry... Yes, the prions thought to be responsible for BSE
and CJD / vCJD are indestructible during "normal sterilisation
procedures". Boiling, steam, alcohol... whatever. However, any
bonemeal used to make a glaze would far exceed any "normal"
sterilisation temperatures. Nevertheless, personal hygiene would
remain important, so nothing is inadvertently ingested.
I make no claim to knowing anything more than the next person,
but I predict you will go through the same stages we did when the
BSE scare started over here in the UK back in the 1980s... That
is unless the US decides it does not need to export after all. It
is other countries putting economic pressure on "infected"
countries by banning meat and animal products which makes the
difference.
Anyway... FIRST our politicians said there was "absolutely
nothing to worry about." (We even had a Minister feeding his
child hamburgers on TV). Sound familiar? Very much like the
"People should continue to feel very confident in the safety of
our meat supply" I heard from Ann Veneman, the US Sect. of
Agriculture.
SECONDLY the scientific community said "nothing has been
scientifically proven. There is no indication that people are at
any risk of being infected by Mad Cow Disease" (it did not yet
have its scientific name back then).
THIRDLY the bottom dropped out of the beef market as people got
scared -- especially the offshore beef importers. British beef
was immediately banned in Europe and other countries. That was
only done under the pressure of their own home economies, because
nobody was eating ANY beef no matter where it was from. In
Germany beef completely disappeared off the shelves until
"confidence was restored" by banning imports. (BTW when BSE was
finally discovered in Germany, it was only through a minor
official ordering a check be made "just to confirm consumer
confidence"! Like I say... total denial :o)
FOURTH the government started doing something about the drop in
consumer confidence at home, whilst still insisting everything
was fine.... Things changed very, very slowly. First anyone
noticed was when the Govt. decided that meat was fine, but not
the bones. So first it became illegal to sell anything on the
bone. Bye-bye to t-bone (rib eye) steaks , oxtail, etc.
Then it was said that mechanically retrieved meat (something you
do NOT want to hear about in detail and the main reason why some
of us still do not buy sausages, luncheon meat, hamburgers,
mince, etc.) which was also a "cause for concern".
The rest is history... Creutzfeldt-Jakobs making his link between
BSE and CJD and then the "new variant" vCJD etc... It was only a
long time after (1997) that the rouge proteins (prions) were
discovered in the brain and spinal cord of those infected and it
took a while before these little buggers in turn were found to be
virtually indistructable. (BTW Stanley Prusiner, who won the
Nobel Prize for Medicine for that work warned the Bush
administration some weeks ago, but they remained "wilfully blind"
to the threat).
Years after the first instances of mad cow... The cause was
finally put down to the bone meal made from sheep suffering from
scrappies (sp?) which the cows were being fed. It took millions
in resources and research to establish and yet the industry still
went on grinding bones up to feed to cows. The practice was
finally outlawed, but only by legislation. Nothing voluntary.
In the meantime other countries were in denial... This could not
happen to them... Well, much to the frustration of British
farmers, it was apparent that where you do not test, you do not
find. Even up to now... Last year only 20,000 were tested for
BSE out of the 35 million animals eaten in the US. In the
meantime, "infected nations" include Austria, Belgium, Canada,
Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Great
Britain, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Liechtenstein,
Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and
Switzerland, with the US being the latest to realise they cannot
expect not to be affected by something that even now, no one
really knows too much about.
The USA did not ban the practice of feeding ruminants like cows,
"protein-enriched feed", especially in the dairy industry, where
the cows are real production machines... This laxness in the face
of the powerful cattle industry has made BSE an inevitability. It
will be something all the meat eating nations will either have to
deal with or become vegetarians. This is probably a good time to
try the Atkins diet in the US. I bet you can get really cheap
meat cuts right now. Same happened here and the defiant British
filled freezers. It only lasted a very short period of time
though... Beef was soon back on plates and the prices went back
up to pre-scare levels.
Sincerely
Janet Kaiser - wondering if this meets to new logical test??? By
the time both opinion and illogical discourse are banned, there
will not be too much left! What a depressing thought...
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