Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [207]
58. Peterson M. New trade threat for U.S. farmers. NYT, August 29, 1999:A1,A28.
59. Ramey TS, Wimmer MJ, Rocker RM. GMOs are dead. In: Mitsch FJ, Mitchell JS. Ag Biotech: Thanks, but No Thanks? Deutsche Bank, July 12, 1999, at www.rag.org.au/baa/gmbank.htm. Also see: GAO. International Trade: Concerns over Biotechnology Challenge U.S. Agricultural Exports (GAO-01-727), June 2001.
60. American Corn Growers Association. Third Annual Survey, December 21, 2001, and Corn Growers Concerned Trade Legislation Will Backfire, January 18, 2002.
61. Wainio J, Gibson P. U.S. exports face high tariffs in some key markets. FoodReview 2001;24(3):29–38.
62. Nettleton JA. Food industry retreats from science. Food Technology 1999;53(10):24.
CONCLUSION. THE FUTURE OF FOOD SAFETY:
PUBLIC HEALTH VERSUS BIOTERRORISM
1. GAO. Bioterrorism: Federal Research and Preparedness Activities (GAO-01-915), September 2001. Bioterrorism: Review of Public Health Preparedness Programs (GAO-02-149T), October 10, 2001. Food Safety and Security: Fundamental Changes Needed to Ensure Safe Food (GAO-02-47T), October 10, 2001.
2. Green E. Britain details the start of its “mad cow” outbreak. NYT, January 26, 1999:F2. Brown P, Will RG, Bradley R, et al. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease: background, evolution, and current concerns. Emerging Infectious Diseases 2001;7:6–16. Balter M. Uncertainties plague projections of vCJD toll. Science 2001;294:770–771. Projections are imprecise because people ate meat from affected cows from 1980 to 1996, and the disease develops slowly.
3. Brown P. On the origins of BSE. Lancet 1998;352:252–253.
4. Other examples are kuru, a human disease specifically associated with ritualistic cannibalism among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, and prion diseases specific to mink, deer, cats, and a great variety of exotic animals. Two Nobel Prizes honor this work: to Carleton Gajdusek for studies of kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (1976), and to Stanley Prusiner for discovering and naming prions (1997).
5. Prusiner SB. Prion diseases and the BSE crisis. Science 1997;278:245–251. But see: Chesebro B. BSE and prions: uncertainties about the agent. Science 1998;279:42–43. Prions are believed to cause proteins in the brain and nervous system to fold improperly. Like other proteins, prions should be inactivated by acid in the stomach, and digested (disassembled) to amino acids by intestinal enzymes. They are not. Instead, they survive stomach acid and digestive enzymes, pass through the intestinal wall, get carried intact through the blood stream, and penetrate the “blood-brain barrier” that protects the brain from harmful substances. Prion proteins appear to be so tightly folded that they resist inactivation by acid, enzymes, and cooking temperatures. Their improbable behavior is the basis of skepticism and alternative hypotheses (such as a slow-acting virus), but most evidence now favors the existence of prions.
6. Urry M. Major called for fewer rules on meat hygiene. Financial Times (London), June 27–June 28, 1998:7.
7. Collee JG, Bradley R. BSE: a decade on—part 1. Lancet 1997;349:636–641 (part 2 is Lancet 1997;349:715–721). Nathanson N, Wilesmith J, Griot C. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE): causes and consequences of a common source epidemic. Am J Epidemiology 1997;14;959–969.
8. Will RG, Ironside JW, Zeidler M, et al. A new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UK. Lancet 1996;347:921–945. Anderson RM, Donnelly CA, Ferguson NM, et al. Transmission dynamics and epidemiology of BSE in British cattle. Nature 1996;382:779–788. Scott MR, Will R, Ironside J, et al. Compelling transgenetic evidence for transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy prions to humans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1999;96:15137–15142.