There is renewed speculation that scrapie of sheep could
cause a brain-attacking disease in people.
There is, however, far from cause-and-effect proof.
On the other hand, caution seems to be warranted.
Which brings me to the case of Michael Schmidt, who snubs his nose at regulations requiring milk to be pasteurized and who is accused of "stealing" 41 Shropshire sheep suspected of being infected with scrapie and subsequently being involved in a conspiracy to hide them at various locations.
How many livestock and people were exposed to risks by this flagrant violation of a quarantine established by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency?
And where are those Shropshire sheep now, and how many of them have died of scrapie? The conspirators aren't telling. So far Suzanne Atkinson, a reporter for Ontario Farmer publications and a dairy farmer, is the only one to plead guilty, but her "agreed statement of facts" clearly puts the finger on Schmidt and the lead conspirator.
Back to the new research: a team of scientists ran tests on humanised
laboratory mice and found that potentially scrapie is capable of infecting
humans.
And the way the infection spreads in the brain is identical to that
seen in cases of sCJD (Kreutzfeldt Jakob disease of humans), they report.
The scientists, led by Dr Olivier Andreoletti,
from the National Veterinary School of Toulouse in France, wrote in the journal
Nature
Communications that "our data on their own do not unequivocally
establish a causative link between natural exposure to sheep scrapie and the
subsequent appearance of Kreuzfedlt Jakob disease of humans.
"However, our studies clearly point out the
need to consider this possibility."
