posted 07-01-2002 01:42 AM            

[Integration of religion and government is a bad thing. Those of you who support the Christian view that 'GOD' should be one with 'COUNTRY' are terribly confused.

Should it be that the word GOD should be included, and simply not recited by those who choose not to

OR

Should it be that the word GOD will not be included, but CAN be recited if that is the individual belief

It's obvious which of the two scenarios is TRUE FREEDOM.]

Alpha - Theta
I don't think our "TRUE FREEDOM" depends on whether or not God is mentioned in the pledge.

I'd like to add a couple of comments by
Charley Reese.

[QUOTE]
Charley Reese:

[It is also useful to keep George Washington's warning constantly in mind: "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence — I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens — the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government."
Zionism is foreign influence.]

[QUOTE]
Charley Reese:

[The truth is, I fear, that Palestinians won't get their independence until Americans get theirs. The Israeli occupation forces hold down the Palestinians, and our government appears to be the captive of the Israeli lobby. You might write your congressman and senators and remind them that they ran for office in the United States, not in Israel, and that they took an oath to defend America, not Israel.]

posted 07-01-2002 02:16 PM            

Having the term god in a nation's pledge preconceives the notion of the existance of GOD, thus assuming that something exists or prevails which cannot be verified, and associating a coerced belief with our nation as a whole.

To disclude the mention of GOD leaves the door open for both believers and non-believers to do or think as they please.

Saying there IS a god is not freedom.

Saying that there 'may' be a god IS freedom.

this is a choice we should all have. no one should be forced to believe that there is a God in a country founded on freedom of religion and independent thought (or so they say).

I really don't care about the words of one man. I don't respect words, and I don't respect the opinion of mankind. Man is the one who took something so personal and so sacred as spirituality, and created conflict and war out of such by calling it 'religion'. It is important to realize previous mistakes, if they are not to be repeated in the future.

True freedom is no religion. True freedom is no mention of God. Not saying there isn't a GOD, I am just saying to include such assumptions in our national pledge leaves no room for individual or independent belief.

It's apparent to me how religion has been used to sculpt us (humanity) and create conflict. Just as you refer to the zionist, how ironic. What is even more ironic is how these conflicts contradict the very principles of the religions for which these fools are fighting for.

posted 07-02-2002 05:21 PM               

By LOU KILZER, Rocky Mountain News of Colorado

(July 1, 2002 8:27 p.m. EDT) - The race is on to find out whether a fatal brain disease in deer and elk poses a risk to human venison eaters."That's what everybody is trying to find out," said Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti, head of a national team studying the occurrence of the deadly protein disease.

Perhaps most significantly, a National Institutes of Health laboratory in Montana is planning to experiment with primates to try to determine human susceptibility to chronic wasting disease.

"Primate research is the most direct way to find out if people are susceptible," NIH research scientist Richard Race said. "It's the species that's most closely related from an evolutionary point of view to people. You cannot inoculate humans on purpose, so the next best thing is some kind of a non-human primate."

But even with the groundbreaking research, Race said, answers are unlikely to come anytime soon. The process could take years, he said.Meanwhile, Gambetti's group and others are gearing up for studies of genetically manipulated mice to see if they can be infected with chronic wasting disease.

"We don't know whether it can be transmitted to humans and, if it is transmitted, what it's going to look like," Gambetti said.

There are no proven cases of chronic wasting disease infecting humans, but concern has intensified as the disease has spread from its endemic areas in Colorado and Wyoming to several other states and two Canadian provinces.

There have been several cases reported in which human venison eaters have contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which, like chronic wasting disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), but one that occurs naturally in humans.

Gambetti said that these cases seem to fit into known subtypes of CJD, but he added that the assumption that human cases from deer or elk would look different upon microscopic examination than ordinary CJD is just that - an assumption.

Most scientists believe all TSEs - CWD, CJD and mad cow disease in cattle - are all caused by a mutant protein called a prion.

Most scientists believe there is a strong barrier preventing prions from one species from infecting another. But 131 European beef eaters have contracted a variant of CJD caused by eating cattle suffering from mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).That has sparked concern that other spongiform encephalopathies, including CWD, could jump to humans or livestock.

Using primates to search for answers is a costly and potentially controversial step, acknowledged Bruce Chesebro, head of the laboratory of persistent viral diseases at the NIH facility that will conduct the research.Race, the chief scientist involved, knows the pitfalls.

"No matter what the outcome, there are going to be people who fault how it was done," he said. "One of the reservations we have is that there are no right answers. Whatever you give the primates, some people are going to say you gave them too much. Some people will say you didn't give them enough."

And there's a political aspect, as well, Race acknowledged."If word gets out that it's actually being done, you get all the animal protest groups and people like that bugging you all the time," he said. "One thing about it if we do it here (at the lab in Hamilton, Mont.) is that security is really tight."

Race is the lead researcher on a continuing mice experiment that has shaken the prion field.In it, hamster prions were injected into mice, which then showed no outward or microscopic sign of the disease. However, when brain matter from those mice is injected into another set of mice and hamsters, they become sick from mutant prions and die.

No one knows how these "sleeper carriers" stay healthy, or why subsequent test animals become sick. But it raises the concern that if CWD infected other animals, it is possible that at least the first generation of the infected species might not get sick.

posted 07-10-2002 09:08 PM               

Malaria Kills Dozens in Kenya

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NAIROBI, Kenya- An outbreak of malaria has killed dozens of people and infected thousands in western Kenya, where warm and wet conditions have helped the disease flourish where it normally doesn't strike, experts said Tuesday.

Many hospitals in the highlands of Rift Valley and Nyanza provinces, 185 miles northwest of Nairobi, were overflowing with patients and mobile clinics were dispatched to the hardest hit areas, said Dr. Sam Ochola, director of Kenya's malaria control program. Ochola said authorities were still compiling figures in some areas, but that dozens had died and thousands infected in the last two weeks. "All of the clinics that we visited could not cope because the patients were too many," Ochola said.

Staffing was being increased at hospitals and clinics, and so far there were enough medical supplies to treat those infected, he said.

Mosquitos in East Africa's highlands normally don't spread malaria because of cold temperatures, said Dr. Jon Cox, an expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Without sufficiently warm temperatures, the malaria parasite doesn't develop inside the mosquito enough to be transmitted when the insect bites, he said. But when the weather is warmer and wetter than normal, the parasite does have time to develop.

Ochola said while the epidemic was widespread, it was not as bad as the last outbreak in 1998 when hundreds of people died. He hoped the epidemic could be contained in the next few weeks.

Cox and Ochola are part of a team developing an early warning system to predict when conditions are right for a malaria outbreak in the highlands of Kenya and Uganda so that preventive steps can be taken.

People were being advised to use mosquito nets, but Ochola said many highland residents, who live on less than a dollar a day, could not afford the $2 expense.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jul/09/070903868.html

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Today: July 10, 2002 at 12:25:23 PDT

Africa Food Crisis May Kill 300,000

ASSOCIATED PRESSGENEVA- The United Nations said severe food shortages brought on by two years of drought could kill as many as 300,000 people in Southern Africa in the next half year.

"There is now a severe humanitarian crisis," said Dr. David Nabarro, a senior official of the World Health Organization.

Earlier this month the United Nations asked for $507 million to buy food for people in the hardest-hit region, which includes Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Mozambique and is home to 60 million people.

Of those people, about 12 million will suffer food shortages in the coming year. But food supplies are only part of the problem. "We have to also address the urgent health-care needs of the population," he said.

Drinking water, medicine and vaccines are also needed, and WHO officials expect soon to ask for $19 million to improve health care in the hunger zone.

"Our calculations suggest that the crisis in this region could result in up to 300,000 'excess deaths' during the next six months," he said. "This is a conservative estimate."

The increased death toll would likely result mainly from diseases that infect people whose resistance drops because they are malnourished, he said. "We're seeing a continuing rise in tuberculosis and acute chest infections," Nabarro said.

Health workers have found increased mortality rates in all population groups, he said. Women have begun showing an increased risk of dying as a result of problems during pregnancy. Nils Kastberg of UNICEF said many of those at risk are children under the age of 5.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jul/10/071006143.html

posted 07-11-2002 02:12 AM               

July 04, 2002 DALLAS - A dreaded germ that often attacks hospital patients is now able to defeat one of medicine's last lines of defense, doctors announced Wednesday.

The bacterium, Staphylococcus aureus, causes staph infections. Staph bacteria often live harmlessly in people's noses or on their skin, but among those already weakened by illness, staph can cause deadly infections.

Although staph has a notorious, 50-year history of developing resistance to many antibiotics, doctors have long been assured that one drug, the powerful antibiotic vancomycin, could kill it.

In 1996, however, a Japanese infant developed a moderately resistant staph infection, able to withstand the usual doses of vancomycin. Since then, researchers have found staph with heightened resistance in eight patients in the United States.

In such cases, doctors have to hope that other, less potent, drugs remain effective.Infection-control experts feared the day when staph would become fully armed, and no amount of vancomycin could stop it. That day is here.

On Wednesday, public health officials from Michigan and the federal government announced that a 40-year-old dialysis patient had become infected with a thoroughly resistant form of staph.

"It represents an evolution in drug resistance in this particular microorganism," said Dr. Steve Solomon of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The patient's infection was vulnerable to drugs other than vancomycin, however, and the resistant staph appears to be limited to one patient.

"There has been no evidence of spread so far," Solomon said. While the appearance of vancomycin-resistant staph will not immediately affect public health, officials said, the development stresses the need to be vigilant about antibiotic misuse. The patient had received many rounds of drugs before developing the resistant infection.

Bacteria can become resistant when antibiotics are not used properly. In the case of the new vancomycin-resistant staph, the bacterium also appears to have picked up a gene for resistance from another species of bacteria. Like outlaws passing secrets, bacteria can share tricks of their trade.

"Obviously, we hoped that it wouldn't happen," said Dr. Bob Munford, an infectious-disease expert from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. While the new infection was resistant to vancomycin, "the good news is that it is still susceptible to other antibiotics."

posted 07-11-2002 02:14 AM               

A choking and dangerous haze is blanketing the city of Pontianak in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan.

A provincial environmental official, Wawan Hermawan, says the haze has returned in the past two days but only after midnight and normally disappears before sunrise.

He says although it lasted only a few hours, the haze had high levels of dust and other particles which are dangerous to health.

His office has warned early risers to stay home until the sun rises.

Mr Hendrawan said the source of the smoke is yet to be established but speculated that cultivators around the city have already started using fire to clear land for replanting.

posted 07-12-2002 09:49 AM            

W A S H I N G T O N, July 12 — Experts can now download a genetic blueprint from the Internet and use mail-order materials to assemble a deadly virus, say researchers who made a synthetic polio virus in the lab to demonstrate the threat.

"The world had better be prepared," said Dr. Eckard Wimmer, leader of a biomedical research team at the University of New York at Stony Brook where the virus was assembled.
The researchers made the virus in the laboratory using data from the Internet and tailor-made sequences ordered from a laboratory supply service. They injected the virus into mice to show that it worked. The animals were paralyzed and then killed.

‘A New Reality’

"The reason we did it was to prove that it can be done and it now is a reality," said Wimmer, senior author of a study appearing today in the journal Science.

"This approach has been talked about, but people didn't take it seriously," he said. "Now people have to take it seriously. Progress in biomedical research has its benefits and it has its down side. There is a danger inherent to progress in sciences. This is a new reality, a new consideration."

Wimmer said the laboratory demonstration proves that eradicating a virus in the wild may not mean it is gone forever. Now, he said, biochemists can reconstruct viruses.

The polio virus assembled in the laboratory is one of the simplest of the human plagues, said Jeronimo Cello, first author of the study.

"It was very easy to do," he said.

Smallpox Danger

Smallpox and other lethal viruses are much more complex and difficult to assemble, but Cello said, "Probably in the future it would be possible."

Wimmer said it "would be very difficult now to re-create the smallpox virus, but eventually you would be able to do that."

Smallpox was eradicated in the wild, but laboratory specimens were retained in the United States and in the Soviet Union. Some experts worry that some specimens could have been hidden for later use as a weapon.

After last fall's terrorist and anthrax-by-mail attacks, U.S. officials became concerned about the threat of smallpox and arranged for the manufacture of enough vaccine to protect the U.S. population. They are now determining how that vaccine should be used.

Stopping Polio Vaccinations?

Polio is on the brink of being eradicated worldwide and there are plans to stop inoculations against the disease after it disappears from nature. Wimmer warned against such plans, saying stopping vaccination could lead to a generation of people highly susceptible to polio, enhancing its danger as a weapon.

The World Health Organization is planning to stockpile polio vaccines and Wimmer said that should be done everywhere.

"Our message is that you have to keep stockpiles of vaccines for every agent that you try to eradicate," he said.

‘Not a Great Contribution’

C.J. Peters, director of the Center for Biodefense at the University of Texas Medical Center at Galveston, said experts have known for years that it was theoretically possible to assemble a virus in the lab.

"This may be the culmination of sewing Frankenstein together, but this is not the research that led up to Frankenstein," Peters said of Wimmer's work. "We've known this could be done. We've known it was just a matter of time before it was done."

Peters criticized Wimmer's demonstration, saying, "I don't think this has been very helpful."

"Wimmer is a very smart guy," he said. "He has made a lot of contributions to polio, but this is not a great contribution."

Peters said he was concerned that publicity about a synthesized virus may lead some people to believe "there is nothing that can be done about bioterrorism, which is not the case."

He said it is possible that viruses like Ebola could be assembled in laboratories, but few people in the world have that skill.

Preventing Misuse

"I don't think we need to encourage people to take this up as a hobby," said Peters.

"Bioterrorists didn't learn anything from us," said Wimmer. "Everything we did has been published before. We just put the steps together. Many laboratories could repeat what we have done."

Wimmer said gene sequences used to make the virus were obtained from supply houses that make the materials to order. He said there should be laws that tighten the distribution of such material, requiring supply houses to report any suspicious orders.

Supply houses could quickly check genetic sequences through the computer and determine in seconds if they could be used to make dangerous virus, he said.

posted 07-12-2002 02:09 PM               

Today: July 12, 2002 at 8:00:29 PDT

3 in La. Are First With West Nile

ASSOCIATED PRESSBATON ROUGE, La.- Three men have been hospitalized with the West Nile virus, the first human cases of the potentially deadly infection reported in the nation this year, officials said.

A 78-year-old man was diagnosed with the mosquito-borne virus Monday, and two more men, ages 62 and 53, were diagnosed Thursday. All live in towns east of Baton Rouge.

Gary Belfamo, a public health veterinarian and assistant state epidemiologist, said officials suspect the men were exposed to the virus at least two weeks ago.

Dr. Anthony Marfin with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that the Louisiana cases are the first reported to the CDC in 2002.

West Nile virus has killed 18 people along the East Coast since it was first detected in this country in New York in 1999. Last summer was the most severe so far, with 66 human infections and nine deaths reported.

Mosquitoes spread West Nile from infected birds to humans, who can then develop deadly encephalitis, or swelling of the brain. Humans cannot pass the virus to each other.

Symptoms are similar to the flu, including fatigue and fever. There is no cure for the virus. "The likelihood is that this virus will cross the entire country," Balfamo said. State officials said they planned to begin an awareness compaign to thwart an outbreak.

The CDC in Atlanta urges people to report dead birds to local health authorities and to protect themselves against mosquito bites by getting rid of standing water, where mosquitoes breed, and to wear insect repellent or long sleeves outdoors.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jul/12/071209807.html

I've also been hearing quite a few stories on the radio about birds dying in California, but haven't seen any media coverage of it yet.

posted 07-12-2002 07:44 PM            

I have never seen this many dead birds in all the years of living here. I wonder if the haze, which by the way is the worse I have ever witnessed here, has something to do with it. I know the air feels heavy,thick even, a small amount of time outdoors doing anything and we are all panting for a breath.

posted 07-12-2002 09:37 PM               

CJD cases 'will increase'

Cases of the human form of mad cow disease are set to increase by about 20% each year, experts have predicted.

But scientists at the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh stress numbers will still be very small.

In their latest report, they said the "north-south divide", where the incidence is higher in Scotland and northern England, will continue.

The report predicted there would be 32 deaths from the disease, the human form of BSE, this year.

Scientists looked back at the history of vCJD since the unit was set up in May 1990 until December 2001.

It said 104 people were thought to have died from the condition, and a total of 114 cases had been identified by the end of January this year.

It suggested that people living in the north in 1991 were about one and three quarter times more likely to have developed vCJD.

'Significant cluster'

The report said: "The upward trend in vCJD cases continues to be statistically significant with an increase of 21% per year for onsets and 23% per year for deaths.

"The incidence of vCJD across the UK continues to show a north-south divide, with a higher incidence being maintained in the north of the UK."

But scientists stress the number of cases is small, and say the only "statistically significant cluster" of vCJD cases occurred in Leicestershire.

There, health officials suggested meat preparation techniques used by local butchers in the 1980s could have led to cross-contamination of muscle meat with brain tissue.

But Professor Peter Smith, chairman of Seac, the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, told BBC News Online: "They are the best estimates at the rate at which cases have been going up. But there is quite a lot of uncertainty."

Professor Smith added: "When vCJD was first described, people felt that, because so many people could potentially have eaten infected meat, that there could have been an epidemic of tens of thousands.

posted 07-13-2002 12:58 AM               

quote:

---

WN virus has not been found in California through 2001. The California Department of Health Services (DHS) has overseen a statewide mosquito-borne encephalitis surveillance program since 1969 for WEE, St. Louis encepahlitis (SLE), and other viruses. In 2000, DHS and other agencies expanded the program to enhance the ability to detect WN virus. A protocol to report and test dead birds was added to the existing surveillance system for encephalitis cases, mosquito testing, and monitoring of sentinel chickens.

---

I've searched the web and there's nothing being reported about dead birds in California yet. I wouldn't be surprised itf the haze has something to do with it though. There are a few places that are supposedly monitoring deaths in birds, but I'm not sure if they're going to release any information.

posted 07-14-2002 04:50 PM               

Wis. Mulls Disposal of Dead Deer

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WAUSAU, Wis.- Hunters took to the woods again this weekend, hoping to kill every deer in one part of southwestern Wisconsin to halt an outbreak of a fatal disease.

Trouble is, wildlife officials still don't know how they're going to dispose of the tens of thousands of unwanted carcasses. Cremation is too costly.

Landfills won't accept the carcasses for burial. Other possibilities are dissolving them with chemicals or opening a state-owned landfill.

"We were hoping there would be options that would be less fraught with complications," said Sarah Shapiro Hurley, deputy administrator for the state Department of Natural Resources' land division. "If worst comes to worst, we will rent bulk, massive cold storage until we have options," she said. "This isn't a situation where we can afford to do nothing and cancel the hunt."

The DNR wants regular hunters and government sharpshooters to kill all the estimated 25,000 deer in a 361-square-mile area of Dane, Iowa and Sauk counties, where 18 deer with chronic wasting disease have been found since last fall.

The discovery marked the first time the disease, a relative of mad cow disease and always fatal in deer and elk, had been detected east of the Mississippi River. Experts say there is no scientific evidence that chronic wasting disease can infect humans, but the World Health Organization advises people not to eat any part of a deer with evidence of the disease.

In Wisconsin, the disease also jeopardizes a strong tradition of deer hunting, a fall sport that annually attracting 700,000 hunters.

A 1996 national survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that deer hunters spent $897 million on their sport a year, and that the total economic impact would be more than $1 billion.

Although the bulk of the deer in Wisconsin's so-called eradication zone are expected to be killed during the regular fall hunting season, the DNR scheduled four weeklong summer hunts to begin killing deer as soon as possible.

After the first season in June, almost all of the 262 deer killed were incinerated at a pet crematorium for $75 apiece, Shapiro Hurley said. Unwanted deer killed in the second season that began Saturday also will be incinerated, but after that, the state wants a less-costly solution.

The DNR last week requested proposals and bids on how to dispose of the deer. Chronic wasting disease is caused by a little-understood protein known as a "prion," which sets off a chain reaction in brain tissue, causing some of the brain's own proteins to change into an aberrant form.

A related form is involved in mad-cow disease. A deer affected with chronic wasting disease loses weight, begins trembling and stumbling, and dies. There is no known cure.

It takes extremely high temperatures to destroy prions, which is one reason landfill operators are balking at burying the deer carcasses. Dane County official Topf Wells said that while studies suggest the health risk from infected carcasses in landfills is minimal, there is "strong public concern" that prions could escape when liquid leaches from buried waste.

Brett Hulsey, a hunter, Dane County supervisor and chairman of a county task force on chronic wasting disease, calls the unwanted carcasses a "3-million-pound problem." Dane County's landfill buried about 500 carcasses from a spring hunt that was intended to determine how far the disease had spread.

Since then, however, the county has told the DNR it won't bury any more. A private landfill in Jefferson County also reversed its policy because of public objections.

posted 07-15-2002 12:31 AM               

Wednesday, July 10, 2002. Posted: 17:44:12 (AEDT)

Mystery surrounding bird deaths

Mystery surrounds the death of dozens of bird in the Tenterfield area.

More than 25 have been reported to the Northern Tablelands wildlife carer, Pam Bryce, who says a similar kill occurred around the same period last year.

Sixty birds of different species died 12 months ago.

While this year the deaths are a mystery, tests last year tracked the cause to high concentrates of cattle drench.

Ms Bruce says kurrawongs are the worst affected this year.

"There's just too many, too sudden and it's so quick.

"One lady was hanging her washing on the line and the bird fell out of the sky and landed on her roof.

"It's got to be quick to do that, no one's brought me a sick bird, they've all been dead when I've got them.

posted 07-15-2002 12:38 AM               

Chronic Wasting Disease Threatening Deer in Wisconsin

By Dean Reynolds
ABCNEWS.COM

M O U N T H O R E B, Wis., July 14 — Julie Langenberg, a veterinarian with Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources, stared at a small specimen of brain matter lying on top of her examination table and sighed.

"It's got to be a horrible death, because it takes so long," she says.Langenberg is talking about chronic wasting disease, a puzzling affliction that was detected last year in random testing of deer carcasses.

It is a kindred illness to mad cow disease."It's hard to manage a disease if you don't understand a lot about how it affects animals," Langenberg said in an interview with ABCNEWS in her lab, where she studies one specimen after another of deer brains.

Few Answers

There are many questions about CWD, but few answers.The disease was first discovered in the Western United States in the 1960s and has affected deer herds in five states and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Wisconsin is the first state east of the Mississippi River to confront the affliction.

"We don't know how it came here to Wisconsin," said Langenberg, "and we will probably never definitively know."What is certain is that the disease is 100 percent fatal for every deer or elk that gets it.The only way to test for it is to get a sample of the deer's brain matter. That means there is no way short of killing the deer to conduct a test.

Wisconsin officials are worried for the approximately 1.5 million deer in the state."Our deer populations are 50-plus times higher than those seen in any of the Western states that have the disease," said Bill Mytton, a deer specialist with the Department of Natural Resources."We're talking about a disease now that if we don't do something, the state of Wisconsin is affected," he said.

Illness Affects HuntingDeer hunting is a million-dollar business here. "This is big money for us," said Gov. Scott McCallum.So state officials have decided to create a 300-square-mile "eradication zone" in the south-central part of Wisconsin near Madison, where positive test results have shown up. They've also decided one more thing: to kill all 25,000 deer in that zone.

For three weeks this summer and through much of the entire fall and winter, hunters will be allowed to kill deer in this zone. The usual hunting season in Wisconsin is about three weeks in the fall.

One might think the expanded season would make hunters exult. But that would be wrong.Most of those ABCNEWS spoke to hunt deer with the intention of turning the meat into feasts for months to come. Venison sausages and steaks fill freezers in many parts of the state.

But they won't be able to eat deer killed in this special hunt in the "eradication zone." Most of the carcasses will be destroyed.Ed Weaver is a hunter with a freezer full of venison from last year's hunt. And while there is no evidence that eating the meat of a sick deer can pass chronic wasting disease on to humans, Weaver is frankly queasy about his stash.

"There's venison steaks, chops, roasts," he said, peering into his freezer. "We use it in all kinds of cooking. "But now? "I can't force myself to throw this meat away," Weaver said, "But right now I can't force myself to eat it either."

A Dilemma

Jim Schunk was out in the woods with his rifle on Saturday at the start of the extended hunting season. Schunk gave up hunting a few years back because "I didn't want to kill things any more."But he's participating in this hunt "to help save the sport in the state of Wisconsin. "I think it's a necessary thing to do," he said, "so I'm here doing it."

Mark Kessenich, a hunter from nearby Vermont, Wis., will not be joining in. "The better idea is to let Mother Nature do it," he said.

Kessenich, who owns a bed-and-breakfast and about 70 acres of farmland, will not allow other hunters onto his property either. "They're talking about drive-by shootings. I mean that's what's been authorized at this point," he said. In addition to hunters in the woods, Department of Natural Resources sharpshooters will scour the area from helicopters looking for targets.

"This is not an interaction with nature," said Kessenich. "This is beating it with a stick." Weaver disagrees. "The real difference is between doing something or nothing. And doing something makes more sense than letting it spread," he said.

And Langenberg echoed his concerns. "If our deer populations crash because of chronic wasting disease, it's going to dramatically change all the habitats" of other animals, she said.

Over the weekend, about 100 deer were killed. That would mean there are about 24,900 to go
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/deer020713.html

__________________________________________________________________

Oregon woman fights off Alaska bear

Associated Press
July 12, 2002 08:45:00

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - An Oregon woman escaped with bite and claw wounds Wednesday after a mauling by a black bear that stalked her for more than an hour along a trail in Southeast Alaska.

Kristy L. Abbott, 27, of Harrisburg, Ore., has returned to work at American Safari Cruises, according to her father, Ralph Abbott, speaking from his home in Harrisburg. She could not be reached for comment.

Abbott told troopers that she was jogging on Petersburg Mountain Trail about 5 p.m. Wednesday when she saw a black bear ahead. She stopped and sounded a portable air horn, but the bear charged.

What followed were a harrowing brawl and chase, which Abbott described to her father later that night.

"She said she was at it for an hour and a half, and she traded blows with it just straight up," Ralph Abbott said. "She would keep it away with a stick as best she could. She said she somehow got a tree between the two of them, and for 15 minutes or so, she'd go one way and it would go the other."

He said his daughter did not turn her back on the gaunt, thin animal. She fought hard and edged back toward the trail head at Kupreanof State Dock.

The confrontation ended when Kristy Abbott walloped the bear over the head with a large stick. She might have hit it in the eye, she told her dad. The bear lumbered away.

She was treated at Petersburg Medical Center for scrapes and puncture wounds on the back of her legs.

Southeast Alaska is densely populated with black bears, said John Hechtel, a wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Such attacks are rare but are not unheard of, he said. Black bears are typically unaggressive and shy around humans. But in rare cases, black bears become single-minded predators and target people. They can attack and chase tirelessly, unruffled by loud noises or pepper sprays, encouraged by someone who runs away or plays dead.

"What you have to do is fend it off is try to fight back with all you've got, make yourself seem as big as possible, use a chunk of wood, a rock, whatever you can and concentrate your attack on the bear's face and nose," Hechtel said. "It sounds like this woman did the right thing."
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0712bearattack-ON.html

___________________________________________________________________

European seal virus reaches epidemic scale with more than 1,200 dead since May

Friday, July 12, 2002
By Anthony Deutsch, Reuters

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A deadly seal virus is sweeping across the seas of northern Europe and is threatening to match the devastating epidemic of 14 years ago that wiped out half the seal population in those waters, said an international study released Thursday.

Scientific tests on the carcasses confirm the phocine distemper virus, which does not affect humans, has infected seal communities in Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands, said the study published in the journal Science.

Populations had barely recovered from the 1988 disaster when the first seal victims were discovered in May.

The disease spreads rapidly because seals travel hundreds of miles within a few days, and researchers said they found the identical virus in widely separated regions.

It has not yet peaked and "the death will continue," said Albert Osterhaus of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, head of a seven-member team researching the disease.

Nearly 1,500 seals have perished this summer and washed onto beaches, said Bettina Reineking of Common Wadden Sea Secretariat, which monitors seal deaths from Germany.

The latest outbreak was discovered on the eastern Danish island of Anholt, but it is still unclear where it originated, the study said.

"The current sequence of events parallels the early pattern" of the last epidemic, when 18,000 seals, or half the population in northern Europe, died from distemper, the report said.

From April to August 1988, the disease swept from the Danish islands to the Dutch Wadden Sea, then to the Baltic and on to British waters. The virus usually causes severely matted eyes, runny noses, and pneumonia, spreading from animal to animal through direct contact with body fluids or by scratching, clawing, or biting.

Most seals actually die from other diseases caught because of a weakened immune system, experts said. Mortality rates can vary from 5 percent to 60 percent, said John Harwood, a population biologist at St. Andrews University in Scotland, who was not connected with the study.

Although there are many similarities with the 1988 outbreak, Harwood said the current epidemic seems to be spreading less rapidly, possibly because it started six weeks later in the breeding season.

Breeding seals may be less inclined to travel long distances while nursing their young, he said. "We all agree that this is a highly infectious disease that spreads very rapidly," Harwood said. "There is a real risk that it could spread throughout the whole of Europe."

Even though Britain anticipated the infection of its seal population, it is virtually impossible to stop, Harwood said. Scientists are puzzled by the source of the latest outbreak, which has spread from Denmark to the Netherlands without infecting seals in Germany.

Infection rates are highest in Sweden at 10 to 20 percent and, if they continue to climb, could kill thousands in the waters off that country, said Osterhaus, the Dutch researcher.

Scientists from the three European countries examined tissue samples of the lungs, kidneys, bladders, and brains from dead seals before diagnosing "a reintroduction of the same disease," Osterhaus said. "The effect of the current epidemic will depend on the overall resistance and specific immunity of the northern European population," according to the report. But Osterhaus said results from tests on seals over the past 10 years are discouraging, with only 5 percent showing resistance.

"What that means is that the vast majority of the population, the other 95 percent, is susceptible to the virus," he said.

Dutch authorities have posted warnings in coastal areas for dog owners to keep their pets away from dead seals. Dogs can become infected, but most domesticated animals are inoculated against distemper.

A variant of distemper that killed thousands of seals in the Caspian Sea in 2000 is believed to have been introduced by wild dogs. Research in the North Sea the year after the 1988 outbreak indicated that seals in polluted waters were more susceptible to the disease, prompting criticism from environmental groups.

Public outrage over the epidemic in Sweden fueled support for the Green Party, which entered Parliament that year.
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/07/07122002/reu_47845.asp

posted 07-17-2002 02:32 PM               

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS- Health officials are keeping a close eye on the incidence of West Nile virus in Louisiana after four new cases were confirmed this week, bringing the number to seven this year.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed this week that a 34-year-old woman and three men, ages 17, 62 and 76, had the mosquito-borne virus.

Last week, state health officials reported that three people, ages 53, 62 and 78, had the disease. The 78-year-old man was the nation's first human found to have the disease this year.

Louisiana has not set any West Nile records - a 1999 outbreak killed seven people and sent 62 others to hospitals in New York - but Louisiana's epidemiologist, Dr. Raoult Ratard, is concerned.

"In 2001, no county in the United States had more than three cases," Ratard said. "We are getting up into fairly concentrated numbers. And of course it's early in the season. So, the news is not that good."

West Nile virus has killed 18 people along the East Coast since it was first detected in 1999. Last summer was the most severe, with 66 human infections and nine deaths nationwide.

Mosquitoes spread West Nile from infected birds to humans, who can then develop deadly encephalitis, or swelling of the brain. Humans cannot pass the virus to each other.

Symptoms are similar to the flu, including fatigue and fever. There is no cure for the virus.

The CDC urges people to report dead birds to local health authorities and to protect themselves against mosquito bites by getting rid of standing water, where mosquitoes breed, and to wear insect repellent or long sleeves outdoors.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jul/17/071708673.html

_________________________________________________________________

Today: July 17, 2002 at 11:05:26 PDT

Malaria Parasite: More Resistant?

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The tiny parasite that causes malaria may be older and more resistant to drugs than previously believed, according to a pair of new studies.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health mapped large sections of the parasite's DNA to determine how far back it dates in evolutionary history and found it may have originated between 100,000 and 180,000 years ago - instead of as recently as 3,000 to 5,000 years ago.

The difference is important when deciding the best way to fight malaria, a blood disease transmitted by mosquitoes that afflicts an estimated 500 million people each year and kills as many as 3 million.

If malaria DNA is fairly uniform genetically, implying it has more recent origins, doctors could more easily develop a vaccine or drugs to prevent or cure the disease.

However, if the parasite's DNA has large variations, a vaccine that prevents one strain could lead to mutations that give rise to more resistant strains that could be deadlier.

The studies, led by Xin-zhuan Su of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, suggest the parasite is older and more genetically diverse.

"These parasites have accumulated a lot of mutations," Su said. "And unfortunately, diversity does accelerate resistance." In another study also appearing in Thursday's journal Nature, researchers isolated a gene that allows the parasite to resist the effects of chloroquine, a common antimalarial drug.

The researchers found that the gene was not only more widespread than previously thought, but also that it had moved through the infected population from continent to continent with alarming speed, likely helping to shape the evolution of the parasite.

"It doesn't mean that any one place is getting any more resistant than others," said Dr. Joseph Vinetz, spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. "But it's consistent with what we've already known, and that is this is a really smart bug."

Scientists previously had believed that chloroquine resistance developed independently in only two areas of the world and slowly spread to other countries. The studies suggests that drug treatment programs should be carefully monitored to limit the spread or increased resistance.

"I think that people in the field and in drug development are thinking mostly about multidrug therapy," said Dyann Wirth, a microbiologist who directs the Harvard Malaria Initiative.

In the first study, the NIH researchers compared the same 204 genes in the third chromosome of malaria parasites from five separate regions: Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, Central America and Papua New Guinea.

In the chloroquine resistance study, the researchers isolated 87 strains of parasite from malaria patients worldwide and compared 342 DNA markers to develop the first genetic "fingerprint" for the entire malaria genome.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2002/jul/17/071708869.html

posted 07-17-2002 08:16 PM               

By Amy Lorentzen
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, July 17, 2002; 2:59 PM

VERDIGRE, Neb. –– Their numbers swelled by the drought, grasshoppers and Mormon crickets are ravaging crops and pastures across the West in what could be the biggest such infestation since World War II.

"They're even eating the paint off some of the houses," said Nebraska farmer Robert Larsen, who raises alfalfa, corn, soybeans and cattle on 1,600 acres where thousands upon thousands grasshoppers jump out of the way as he walks by in what looks like the parting of the sea.

The infestation threatens the livelihood of farmers and ranchers already suffering because of the dry spell.

Agriculture officials are reluctant to put a dollar figure on the damage so far this year. But last year, grasshoppers and Mormon crickets – a black, wingless cousin of the grasshopper – caused $25 million in crop damage in Utah alone.

A mild winter and hot, dry weather since the spring have sped up the maturation of some grasshopper species and allowed more of the insects and their eggs to survive the cold. The drought has also cut into the population of birds and rodents that prey on grasshoppers, and reduced the fungal diseases that normally keep the insects' numbers down.

The result: Larsen and other farmers in parts of Nebraska have counted 50 to 100 grasshoppers per square yard in their fields, compared with three or four during a typical year. Even worse, near Steamboat Springs, Colo., about 200 grasshoppers per square yard invaded rangeland in June, reaching about 1 million grasshoppers per acre.

"We probably have farmers that have never experienced it before. The ones that have are probably in their 60s or 70s," said Michael Cooper, chairman of the National Grasshopper Management Board and acting administrator for the Idaho Department of Agriculture.

Nebraska, New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon and South Dakota are among the states hit hardest. But outbreaks have been reported in parts of most states west of the Mississippi River.

A grasshopper can devour more than half its body weight in vegetation per day, which can leave crops looking like Swiss cheese and rob pastures of feed for cattle.

"You walk across the edge of some fields and it looks like it is moving," said Ron Seymour, a University of Nebraska extension educator based in Hastings.

Farmers are left with two options: They can hold out for a change in the weather – rain would encourage the spread of predators and diseases that can kill off grasshoppers – or they can spray pesticides. But spraying can be costly.

Hiring an aerial sprayer can cost $6 to more than $11 per acre depending on the type of land and the chemicals used, said Dahl Jungren, owner of Flying J Aviation in Broken Bow. Cropland is more expensive than rangeland.

A total of $3.6 million is available to farmers this year through the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for surveys and technical assistance in dealing with the grasshopper infestation. But that does not pay for spraying or the damage done by the pests.

Some ranchers will have to decide whether to try to save their grass or give up and buy hay to feed their cattle.

And the problem could get a lot worse. Many of the grasshoppers are still young and will become more voracious after they have become winged adults this month.

Also, grasshopper infestations can contribute to high numbers of other pests such as blister beetles, which feed on grasshopper eggs. The beetles, also known as potato bugs, blister the throats and stomachs of animals that eat them while feeding on alfalfa.

Dawson and Custer counties in the center of Nebraska are seeing some of the worst grasshopper infestations. About 40,000 acres – 62.5 square miles – were sprayed in May alone in Custer County.

posted 07-18-2002 09:37 PM               

West Nile Found in Texas, Nebraska
ASSOCIATED PRESS

DALLAS- The West Nile virus has spread to Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska - the farthest west it has been found - prompting officials to begin spraying creeks, ponds and anywhere there is standing water to eradicate mosquitoes that carry the deadly virus.

Mosquitoes hovered near Joyce Hopkins' heavily wooded Dallas home Thursday as a dead blue jay she found in her driveway was bagged and taken away for testing by health officials.

"I just think what you do is take responsible precautions," said Hopkins, who uses bug repellent and zappers.

As the virus marches west across the United States, health officials say people should be cautious, but not overly concerned.

Less than 1 percent of the mosquitoes where the virus has been found carry it, and less than 1 percent of bites from those cause serious illness, said Doug McBride, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Health.

From its discovery in 1999 in New York City, the virus has infected at least 149 people and killed at least 18 nationwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cases have been recorded in 31 states and the District of Columbia; Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and North Dakota were added to the list this year, according to the CDC.

Mosquitoes contract the virus from birds and pass it to humans and horses. In Texas, 50 birds and eight horses have tested positive, but no human cases have been found, McBride said.

In Tulsa, Okla., a dead crow found last week tested positive late Wednesday. Officials there increased daily sprayings of insecticides from two trucks to three, and residents were asked to mow lawns and empty any pools of standing water.

There were no efforts under way in Nebraska to spray pesticides or drain standing water after the state's first case was confirmed this week from a dead blue jay found June 28, officials said.

But Nebraska officials said they were stepping up tracking efforts.

About a dozen lighted mosquito traps, baited with dry ice to attract the insects with carbon dioxide, were placed in a Lincoln neighborhood. Other tracking sites around Nebraska have flocks of sentinel chickens which are tested biweekly for the disease.

Just this week, the CDC confirmed four new cases of the mosquito-borne virus in Louisiana, bringing the number to seven this year. The nation's first human cases reported this year were in Louisiana.

The virus causes flu-like symptoms and, in about 1 percent of human cases, can cause a serious illness that includes encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. McBride said as with most illnesses, the young, the elderly and those with weak immune systems are the most vulnerable.

No vaccine exists for humans, though health officials say a vaccine for horses, while not fully tested, has shown promise.

Experts say the best weapon against the disease is reducing the likelihood of mosquito bites, such as wearing mosquito repellent and long pants and sleeves and emptying standing water near homes.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2002/jul/18/071801799.html
__________________________________________________________________

Today: July 18, 2002 at 12:05:28 PDT

Vandals Damage Ariz. Indian Ruins
ASSOCIATED PRESS

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz.- The Lomaki Ruins, which contains remnants of a 12th century Anasazi village, has been closed after the site was vandalized.

The vandalism at Wupatki National Monument was discovered Tuesday, and the National Park Service said it could be months before site reopens.

Stone walls around the pueblo structure were smashed and 800-year-old granaries also were damaged.

Park Service investigators are searching the grounds for evidence, said Mary Blasing, a park service law enforcement ranger.

Archaeologists will have to assess the damage, draw up repair plans and receive approval from the State Historic Preservation Office before restoration work can begin, Blasing said.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/nat-gen/2002/jul/18/071801077.html

posted 07-21-2002 01:45 AM               

FOR RELEASE: July 18, 2002 Contact: Blaine P. Friedlander, Jr.
Office: 607-255-3290
E-Mail: bpf2@cornell.edu

ITHACA, N.Y. -- They're here.

Japanese shore crabs, a square-shaped crustacean that poses a direct threat to soft-shell (steamer) clams, mussels and lobsters, were discovered July 13 by Cornell University marine biologists in Owl's Head, Maine, on the shores of Penobscot Bay.

The detection of this crab, which has the potential to hurt Maine's seafood industry, means that Penobscot Bay becomes the most-northern point along the Atlantic seaboard where these crabs have been found. The Japanese shore crabs (Hemigrapsus sanguineus ), which feast voraciously on mussels, clams and other shellfish, were found at Crescent Beach in Owl's Head by Robin Hadlock Seeley, a marine biologist and an associate curator of Cornell's Malacology Collection, and Erin McDonald, a Cornell junior from New Hartford, N.Y.

Last summer Seeley was conducting her annual survey of the green crab, another invasive species, when she found the smaller purple crab in Casco Bay, Maine. The Japanese shore crabs, which already have invaded the waters of Chesapeake Bay, Long Island Sound, the Jersey shore and the coast of Massachusetts, were not expected to be found this far north so soon.

"The shock is that they've been in almost every place we've looked in Maine," Seeley said. "Anytime you have a new species which is a predator, you have cause for concern."

To find these crabs, the researchers had combed the southern shores of Penobscot Bay. The low tide on July 13 was at 7:45 a.m., which is when the researchers began inspecting Birch Point Beach in Owl's Head. After three hours they had found no Japanese shore crabs there.

However, the researchers continued their morning hunt. "We really didn't have much time left before high tide, but we wanted to make sure the crabs weren't this far north," said Seeley.

With two hours until high tide, at about 11 a.m., they visited nearby Crescent Beach. The Japanese shore crabs enjoy living in craggy shore conditions and have an affinity toward hiding under rocks.

"Barnacles are really sharp, and we were cutting up our fingers turning over the rocks looking for them. In the meantime, the tide was creeping in, and we knew that our time on Crescent Beach was limited," said Seeley. "The waves were lapping at our feet."

Within 10 minutes at Crescent Beach, McDonald saw a purple flash. The creature evaded McDonald's capture by ducking under a boulder. She called out to Seeley, who ran over and helped turn over the boulder. Indeed, the purple flash was a Japanese shore crab.

Meet Hemigrapsus sanguineus (pronounced hemmy-grap-sis san-gwinn-ee-us), also called the Asian shore crab, or the Pacific shore crab. It was first found along the Atlantic Coast in 1988, when a Franklin and Marshall College undergraduate student saw the unusual-looking crab under a bridge at Townsends Inlet in Cape May, N.J.

The crab likely arrived on the Atlantic shores by way of dumped ballast water from an Asian merchant ship. Since then millions of these crabs have migrated north and south. Until now the crab has been found as far north as Long Island Sound, Massachusetts and Harpswell, Maine. It has been seen as far south as North Carolina. It's quite a crabby crab.

"The shore crabs are more aggressive than the European green crabs, and the green crabs are bad enough," says Seeley. It feeds on clams, mussels, other crabs and possibly lobsters.

Where it lives, in the rocky intertidal (the areas of shore that are above low tide) zones, the Japanese crabs are smaller than the adult green crabs but reportedly stronger and quite able to tear the claws off larger species of crabs.

John J. McDermott, the B.F. Fackenthal professor emeritus of marine zoology at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa., has been studying the crab since its 1988 discovery.

Japanese scientists determined that the adult female can live as many as three years and can carry as many as 52,000 eggs, but McDermott believes that the females may have many more eggs than that.

Seeley and McDonald's summer research is supported by a grant from Cornell's New York Science Education Program.

Understanding the impact this discovery might have on Maine's seafood industry, including Maine's emerging aquaculture industry, Seeley indicated that the Japanese shore crabs could take years to become strongly established in the Penobscot Bay tidal areas.

posted 07-22-2002 12:20 AM               

Did wild game feasts lead to fatal brain disorders?

By JOHN FAUBER and MARK JOHNSON of the Journal Sentinel staff

Last Updated: July 20, 2002

The wild game feasts were a fall ritual that drew outdoorsmen to the Waterhouse family cabin overlooking the Brule River, and filled the cedar-frame retreat with the aromas of partridge, Western elk, moose and Wisconsin white-tailed deer

Now, years later, the legacy of those hearty spreads of the late 1980s and early '90s is a medical mystery linking three of the diners - James Botts, Wayne Waterhouse and Roger Marten.

One by one, the three have died from rare brain diseases, leaving their families and health officials wondering whether their deaths were an eerie coincidence or evidence that the deer and elk brain disorder known as chronic wasting disease has crossed the threshold from animals to people.

Either way, their tale is one more warning sign on a cautionary trailcutting through the heart of one of Wisconsin's most popular and revered traditions: deer hunting.

Waterhouse and Botts both died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an always-fatal brain ailment that occurs in only onein a million people. Marten was believed to have died of Pick's disease, a somewhat more common neurological disorder that can be diagnosed in error when the true culprit is Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

Over the years, as many as 100 men may have taken part in the wild game feeds at the Waterhouse cabin. The odds are strongly against two men dying of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, according to Dennis Maki, a professor of medicine and an infectious disease expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Three would increase those odds dramatically.

"It's very suspicious," he said.

The families of the three men were devastated and baffled by their deaths - Waterhouse and Marten in 1993 and Botts in 1999 - all before chronic wasting disease was known to exist in Wisconsin's deer herd.

"Did hunting kill my dad? Did deer kill him?" asked Waterhouse's son, Gary. "If you'd have taken deer hunting away from him, that would have been the end of him. . . . Maybe the deer killed him. I don't know."

Raising more suspicion, however, is the fact that some of the meat served at the wild game feasts was elk and deer from Western states - including Colorado, where chronic wasting disease has been endemic for decades.

Presented last week with specifics of the cases, state public health officials expressed concern.

"We've immediately decided to proceed with an investigation," said Jeffrey Davis, chief medical officer and state epidemiologist for communicable diseases at the Wisconsin Division of Public Health.

He said the state will request death certificates and clinical and laboratory records for the three men.

Suspicions rising

So far, there has not been a documented case of a person contracting chronic wasting disease, but a handful of suspicious cases have surfaced in Wisconsin and around the country, all involving venison eaters who have contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a deadly neurological disorder closely related to mad cow disease.

One of those cases involved D. Kevin Boss, a Minneapolis resident who died of CJD in 1996 at the age of 41. Boss occasionally ate venison from Wisconsin, including deer killed in Barron County, provided by his brother-in-law. Wayne Waterhouse lived in Barron County; Botts lived in Minnesota but grew up in Barron; Marten lived in nearby Buffalo County.

There have also been several documented cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob among people who cooked and ate brains from squirrels and wild goats.

The human version of mad cow disease, known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, has killed more than 130 people in Europe and is believed to be caused by eating contaminated beef.

Scientists who watched mad cow disease jump from animals to humans are now deeply concerned that chronic wasting disease will make the same leap - if it hasn't already happened.

"We're actively looking for human beings who have acquired chronic wasting disease," said G. Richard Olds, chairman and Linda and John Mellowes Professor of Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin.

Today, research on chronic wasting, mad cow and Creutzfeldt-Jakob centers on an unusual infectious agent suspected of causing all three diseases.

All three are so-called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and are believed to be caused by prions, microscopic pathogens that have no DNA and are neither bacteria nor a virus.

Prions are mutant proteins that get normal proteins to mimic their distorted shape, resulting in a buildup of spongelike holes in the brain.

They are particularly adept at infecting nerve cells such as those found in the brain, spinal cord and eyes.

One reason prions are so feared is that they are highly resistant to heat and other sanitizing methods. It is believed that they can exist in the soil and other locations for years and resurface to infect animals.In addition, prions may silently incubate for years or even decades in a person before producing symptoms of disease.

"These things behave differently from any other infectious agents we've ever dealt with before," Olds said. "They're practically indestructible."

Dreaded consequences

If chronic wasting disease prions were going to infect people, the men who gathered for the feasts at the Waterhouse cabin in northwestern Wisconsin were as likely candidates as any.

Several of the men were prolific hunters, bagging hoofed game in Wisconsin, the Western United States, Mexico and Canada.

The trophy room in the Chetek home of Gary Waterhouse, Wayne's son, includes a full-size musk ox, polar bear, grizzly bear and bobcat. It also contains two full-size mountain goats and numerous mounted heads of deer, elk and moose. All the trophies were shot by Gary.

The son inherited his love and dedication to hunting from his father.

"My dad was an avid hunter, and he was a very good hunter," Gary said.

Likewise, Marten, a native of nearby Mondovi, traveled North America hunting trophy animals. But he was equally happy to hunt in Wisconsin, even from home."He hunted deer every year from a lawn chair with a six-pack of beer," said his son, Randy.

Botts, who was raised in Chetek and later moved to the Minneapolis area, was not a hunter but regularly traveled to the Brule River to fish.

His wife, Judy, said he mentioned being invited to the wild game feasts at the Waterhouse cabin.

Initially, she said, she made no connection between the banquets and her husband's disease, but then news broke earlier this year about chronic wasting disease in Wisconsin.

"It just came to me and it came to me very strong," she said.

It'sa connection state officials dread having to make, given the grave health and economic consequences it could have for Wisconsin. The state Department of Natural Resources has gone so far as to say on its Web site that there is "no scientific evidence that CWD is transmissible through consumption of meat from an infected animal."

Still, the department is taking unprecedented precautions, telling hunters to wear rubber gloves when field-dressing carcasses, minimize handling of brain and spinal tissues and avoid consuming brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes. The department is also requesting that hunters process their animals individually without mixing meat from different animals.

"Health experts advise that no part of any animal with evidence of CWD should be consumed by humans or other animals," the department mentions on its Web site.

Meanwhile, state health officials are escalating their surveillance of Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases in Wisconsin.Earlier this year, the state division of public health urged doctors around the state to report probable cases of CJD, especially in patients under the age of 55.

None of the three men was younger than 55. Botts was 55when he died; Waterhouse and Marten were 66.

'It's very intriguing'

Regardless of their age, UW's Maki said the likelihood of two people who know each other contracting CJD is very low. Three would be even more unlikely and would suggest a common exposure - such as contaminated meat.

Maki posed these theoretical numbers:If each of the three men knew 5,000 people, they would have had a circle of acquaintances totaling 15,000.

With a known incidence of one in 1 million people, you'd expect to find a CJD case among a group of 15,000 people roughly once every 70 years, he said. Two cases would take 140 years and three cases 210 years.

One case could just be a sporadic occurrence, he said. With two cases, "You'd have to sit up and prick up your ears," he said. With three cases, "the statistical likelihood is extremely low.

"He said the northern Wisconsin scenario is complicated by one man being diagnosed with Pick's disease.Like Creutzfeldt-Jakob, Pick's is a fatal neurological disorder. While prions are suspected as the cause of CJD, the cause of Pick's remains unknown, although prions have not been ruled out as playing a role.

The Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Foundation says that CJD can be mistaken for a variety of neurological disorders, including Alzheimer's and Pick's disease. Some doctors may not even consider CJD as a possible diagnosis since it is considered rare, the foundation says. In addition, the brain biopsy needed to make a definitive CJD diagnosis is invasive, costly and risky.

Jordan Grafman, chief of the cognitive neuroscience section at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., said it would be "very rare" today for a CJD case to be misdiagnosed as Pick's. Medical authorities in the U.S. now are fairly vigilant about looking for the disease because of the mad cow disease outbreak abroad.

However, such a misdiagnosis would have been somewhat more possible in 1993, he said. And there may be other reasons to question Marten's diagnosis.

It is "highly unusual" for a Pick's patient to die within a year of the onset of symptoms, Grafman said.

The vast majority of patients die within two to 10 years.

Marten died slightly less than a year after he first displayed symptoms, according to his son, Randy.It's also unusual for someone to get Pick's after age 60. Marten died at age 66.

More important, the gold standard for diagnosing Pick's disease is to do an autopsy and a molecular analysis of brain tissue.According to a certificate of death obtained from the state of Nevada, where Marten died after being taken to a clinic in Reno for treatment, no autopsy was performed.

UW's Maki said if Marten actually had CJD and was misdiagnosed, the possibility of chronic wasting disease having infected the three men becomes even more likely.But even if the case was accurately diagnosed as Pick's, "It's very intriguing," he said. "That's all we can say at this time."

Body of research

Maki said he believes that if chronic wasting disease spreads among Wisconsin's deer herd, it's only a matter of time before the disease spreads to people."We eventually will see cases (in humans)," he said.

However, he predicted the number of cases is likely to remain small and the risk low.Two years ago, federal government researchers at the Rocky Mountain Labo