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

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Summary: Great book on prion diseases, difficult to put down.
Review: A very well written book about the very likely path through recent history that the prion- related diseases in both animals and humans have taken. Kelleher ties in all of the prion related diseases currently known to exist and gives a more than plausible link to each. It is well documented, clearly written, and most frightening if one is a consumer of meat products.

I give it my highest recommendation. Robert

Rating:
Summary: As a neurologist, I found it frightening
Review: 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 more accurate picture of the situation will be revealed.

As for the book itself, it appears well-researched with references appearing in a detailed appendix. The strength of the work is how the seamless argument is woven together in a highly readable fashion, making it accessible to all. It reads like a first-rate thriller and is hard to put down. I read it in two sittings over a weekend.

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Summary: Yikes!!
Review: Brain Trust exposes the health threat of Alzheimers in the US. Kelleher starts by giving an overview of Mad Cow disease and what we already know about it. It is caused by a prion, which is an abnormally twisted protein. When the abnormally twisted protein comes into contact with a normally twisted protein it changes the shape of that protein to match its own. In the case of Mad Cow disease we already have the normal twisted versions of the protein in our brain tissue. This prion is only denatured (killed) at temperatures somewhere above 600 C, so cooking the meat or even autoclaving contaminated equipment provides little safety. Symptoms of Mad Cow disease may appear as much as 30 years after exposure, so many people could be infected before the problem was noticed. Much of the book covers the history of Mad Cow disease and other prions, including chronic wasting disease in wild game animals. This history reveals what we know about prions and are clearly written.

Kelleher moves on to a discussion of the present and points out the following disturbing facts about meat in the US: Physicians prefer not to do autopsies on people who may have died from Mad Cow disease because they will be unable to safely use their surgical equipment again without risk of spreading the prion (remember 600 C to denature it). Therefore our statistics on the disease in people will tend to be skewed especially if another degenerative brain disorder - like Alzheimers can be blamed. (Alzheimers like Mad Cow disease progresses very quickly once a person shows symptoms and in an older person a misdiagnosis is plausible.) In the US only about 0.6% of beef cows are inspected for Mad Cow disease at the time of slaughter as compared with about 30% in England and 100% in Japan. Kelleher points out many ways in which animal feed is suspect. Cow parts are fed to chickens, and then later chicken parts comprise part of cow feed etc. Many many examples of iffy feed procedures, which no one has researched for safety.

While Kelleher's approach is somewhat alarmist this is an issue that we Americans tend to ignore and should be more educated on. For example, for years after I heard about Mad Cow disease, I thought cooking beef made it safe to eat. Kelleher provides a simple solution to eliminate the unknown and greatly ignored risk which Mad Cow disease poses. Grain fed and grass fed cows are safe and shifting the industry to this model while inspecting more cows at the time of slaughter would likely eliminate the risk of mad cow disease.

The issue discussed here is very important to national health. I urge people to skim through this book at the least and consider where the beef they eat is coming from.

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Summary: A Must Read!
Review: 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


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Summary: A Clearly Written Wake-Up Call
Review: 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!

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Summary: It got my attention!
Review: Most of us know someone who has suffered from Alzhiemer's Disease. Alziemer's disease, especially early adult onset (Alzeimer's disease that occurs in people before the age of 65) is on the rise in the U.S. Are some of these cases misdiagnosed cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD)? A person who develops vCJD, acquired it from consuming a Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) -contaminated product, that he or she likely consumed many years or a decade or more earlier. The vCJD epidemic began in England during the mid-1990's but was the disease already in the U.S.?
Has the U.S. been facing a public health emergency for more than 20 years? How safe is our beef? Have other foods such as pork and poultry been contaminated by prions- the causative agent of these debilitating neurological illnesses?

Kelleher is not afraid to ask the tough questions and to expose the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "don't look, don't tell" behavior. This book may be the catalyst that will motivate the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Agriculture into a thorough investigation of prion diseases in America.
Kelleher chronicles the epidemiology and history of prion diseases.

U.S. scientists began studying a related prion disease called Kuru during the early 1960's. Kuru afflicted a cannibalistic tribe in New Guinea. American scientists brought back samples of brains from diseased victims of Kuru and inoculated the brain tissue samples into multiple species of animals at a facility which may not have been had proper containment. The facility, known as the Patuxent, was a wildlife refuge from 1963-1970. Kellerher states "Were they (the inoculations) fuel on the fire of prion diseases that were already present in the wild?"

Kelleher points out some startling facts. For example, the CDC does not require state health departments to report the number of cases and deaths related to vCJD, sporadic CJD or Alzeimer's Disease. How can we get a handle on these diseases if they are not monitored properly? Reports in medical journals state that approximately 5-13% of vCJD cases were misdiagnosed by physicians as Alzheimer's disease. This number may be much greater than that because the families of many victims cannot afford the expensive $1500 autopsy fee required to verify the cause of death of a loved one who has died from an illness with symptoms similar to CJD.

What I find most alarming is Kelleher's mention of a study published in the January, 2003 issue of Journal of Virology. The results of the study show that prions can travel from the brain to the tongue via tongue-associated cranial nerves (and vice versa). Abrasions in the tongue of a host may predispose them to oral prion infection. Cow tongue is used in food products and serves as a source of prion infections in humans. If we carry this idea further, there is the possibility that prions may spread accidentally through dental procedures. Would you be concerned if your teeth were worked on immediately after a misdiagnosed Alzeimer's patient's teeth?

The average consumer knows little about the food supply and its potential impact for exposure to disease. Consumer awareness is needed to spur the government into action. It is urgent that the scope and extent of prion diseases in the U.S. is uncovered. This book is a quick, easy read and one I highly recommend to all. He has certainly gotten my attention.





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Summary: Fascinating story
Review: Reading Colm Kelleher's book was like reading a real-life detective novel. It begins with the story of a bizarre disease found among indigenous people in Papua New Guinea and the dedicated and adventurous researchers who studied it. A series of what seem at first to be unrelated events are recounted, and each time Dr. Kelleher reveals the possible links with the previously recounted events in a way that kept me constantly interested.

The book led me to understand several things that I had known little about before -- the vulnerability of our food supply, the conflict between the economic interests of food suppliers and efforts to protect consumers, and the potential impacts of disease in one species on another among them. I am not a scientist nor do I work in any way with the food industry, and I could follow every step. It's a fascinating story.


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Summary: Yikes! This is Frightening
Review: 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.

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Summary: Meat eaters beware
Review: This scrupulously researched account of "meat gone mad" sends shivers through me. As a lay person I was surprised to find I could track Dr. Kelleher's brilliant integration of events and the related research that uncovers what has been covered up -- the truth. By whatever name... deadly infections that kill animals are now killing us.

As alarming as this situation is, I'm heartened that this research is being done and will recommend this book to everyone I know. We must be informed consumers. It's urgent!


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Summary: Every Mother Needs To Read This!
Review: To take care of one's family, to provide healthy and safe meals, and to be conscious of the eating choices of your children is all part of being a mom. I have been an organic meat-eater for the last 20 years without knowing too much about Mad Cow Disease. I only knew it was probably a better choice to limit my meat intake to organic meats and grass-fed beef. After reading "Brain Trust" I am so very relieved I made these choices. Now that I have an "O" blood type husband and 16 month old daughter, I will continue to make these choices to limit the risk to my family.

"Brain Trust" reads like a novel yet it is an accurate accounting of current scientific data. It suggests how to continue research so that Americans and Canadians do not have to suffer the same experiences of so many people in Europe over this last decade from the Mad Cow epidemic. I believe that mothers need to require the U.S. and Canadian government agencies to implement Dr. Kelleher's Six Point Action Plan. Taking precautionary steps to ensure the safety of our food supply is common sense.

As a result of reading "Brain Trust" my creative energies have been ignited. Our options for securing and testing local food suplies are numerous. Each region where one lives can become a source of healthy food options. Eventually the precautionary actions, scientific data and new understandings will shift the economic realities towards living on this planet according to the way nature operates (read books by Janine Benyus and Lynn Margulis). While some may feel the message from this book is alarmist, I read it as a timely precaution and call to action. Humanity can act from precaution, vision and what is right.

I thank Dr. Kelleher for his courage, hard work and vision.