Chinese Inspectors Visit Northern Ireland Pork Processors

This story troubled the writer. He knew why, but had no solutions, but a good night's sleep put that right.

The problem: There is no better way to spread diseases all over the world than to allow globe-trotting veterinarians and inspectors to tramp from farm to farm.

China to Northern Ireland and Northern Ireland to China. Either direction, it is a massive risk. Boots and breath can both spread disease.

But the Chinese need to be sure that the product they are buying is clear of disease in a pig disease ridden world and Northern Ireland needs the exports.

We know that veterinary certificates of health are completely unreliable and often recklessly issued or faked. Buyer Beware!

So the buyer insists on dangerous self-defeating inspections. They have no option.

Catch 22.

But it isn't.

Once all British trade certificates and documentation were the gold standard of international trade. The writer knows, he made his living on the front line. Britain's reputation was the tops.

Since, veterinary rot and corruption set in - including Northern Ireland where some years ago a large number of veterinarians were very gently tapped on the wrist for faking it up.

They are still there, those that have not retired to the sun, doubtless  still as unreliable, pompous, determined and corrupt. We should not be surprised that we have a huge series of international scandals from superbugs to horsemeat.

The Solution: Crack down on veterinary corruption, by bringing the culprits before the courts - make British, Irish, Chinese - anyone who wants to trade in animals and animal products proud to use veterinary certification that is clean, reliable and safe.

Strike off any veterinarian recklessly issuing certification - put them out of business for good. If they did it deliberately, put them behind bars for fraud. They damage their country and their country's customers by sabotaging their trading reputation.

Make sure that the world, its people, have access to safe guaranteed meat. Clean up the veterinary industry. We want Britain to be in the lead, being the best, so that young veterinarians are so proud of their integrity, that they would be sure to stand behind what they sign.

Be sure to read the report, in full, here:

Chinese Inspectors Visit Northern Ireland Pork Processors

28 April 2015
NORTHERN IRELAND, UK

...The Chinese Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA) are visiting Northern Ireland this week to assess pork processing premises to export...

Overweight? It could be livestock antibiotics.

A very good article from the USA covering an aspect of antibiotic misuse on livestock that is rarely mentioned, and lies in the shadow of the apparently much more serious superbug crisis: the meat also makes you fat.

There is also a good explanation why merely banning antibiotics to increase weight in animals won't work in the USA, any more than it has in Europe.

Just a few quotes to whet your appetite.

Be sure to read the whole here:

Antibiotic Overload: Experts Blame Livestock Use for Human Resistance, Even Obesity

By Stacy Finz


...“I’ve been surprised that this has been allowed to persist,” said panelist Michael Pollan, a UC Berkeley journalism professor and food activist. “It’s a public health threat.”

And that’ s not all. Panelist Dr. Lee Riley, a UC Berkeley professor of infectious diseases who has studied the issue, said he believes that antibiotic use in food animals could be contributing to the country’s obesity epidemic...

...“If it’s a growth promoter in livestock, what do you think it is in humans?” he asked...

... Maryn McKenna, a science journalist at work on a book chronicling the history of antibiotic use in livestock production...

...The livestock industry has said that it’s not opposed to reducing its use of human antibiotics, but wants the option to continue to use antimicrobials as a prophylactic. (It’s common practice for large livestock producers to put antibiotics in feed and water as a preventative measure against disease.) Some producers say their stock would die without it...

...Holland actually saw an increase after its ban because farmers used the prophylactic reason as a loophole, McKenna said. American politicians have repeatedly tried to pass strict legislation both federally and statewide that would ban any kind of use other than to treat a sick animal, but to no avail.

“Big ag and big pharm are powerful industries,” Pollan said...

... “What needs to be changed is animal husbandry.”...

Posted on April 22, 2015 - 11:58am

Mad Cow Disease In Texas Man Has Mysterious Origin

Many times, over the years we commented that the impact of Britain's epidemic of Mad Cow -  vCJD on the rest of the world had been badly under-reported in Britain.

It was played down at home, but made a much bigger impact than most Brits realised abroad.

Apparently a NPR (National Public Radio) report is now "trending" in the USA.

Britain still suffers from a total lack of integrity in Defra, originally the agricultural ministry Maff. Their appalling behaviour in the past comes back to haunt us years later in the USA.

The Phillips Enquiry, reporting just after FMD 2001, despite censuring some politicians, hardly inspired confidence. The government veterinarians had amnesia when testifying. They were not under oath.

The whitewash may well be coming back to haunt Britain's veterinary establishment.  Animal feed and, this time the antibiotics added and under what authority, is coming to the fore again in the superbug crisis.

Here is Texas, be sure to read the whole article, here.

Mad Cow Disease In Texas Man Has Mysterious Origin

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Michaeleen Doucleff / NPR

...How did a rare disease linked to contaminated beef in the U.K. more
than a decade ago get to a Texas man?...

... And from 1980 to 1996, the U.K. continued to export contaminated
beef around the world. More than 200 people in 12 countries died from
mad cow disease...

... And the U.S. didn't import contaminated beef from the U.K...

China - Porcine Circovirus and Hepatitis E as co-infections in Pigs

More confirmation of the consequences of co-infections involving these particular viruses.

The writer has long claimed Porcine Circovirus (PCV2) as the grand-daddy of most of the constant problems in pig health spreading serious disease to people.

We do, of course, have both Circovirus and HEV (Hepatitis E) in the UK, in both pigs and people, and this blog has been commenting on both for many years. You can find hundreds of posts. here and thousands elsewhere.

Hepatitis E is, of course, a very real human risk and has been both reported in pig farmers in Cornwall and known to be carried by some veterinarians, for many years.

We continue to be amazed that the veterinarians are so relaxed about carrying a disease that is especially dangerous to pregnant women and children: the power of self-deception, and constant self-promoting public relations, we suppose. Public relations is a more powerful drug on those benefiting, than those targeted.

The TV programme "All Creatures Great and Small," and dozens of similar programmes lauding veterinarians have a lot to answer for, in a world sinking into a morass of zoonotic disease stalking humanity, homes and hospitals.

Anyway, the Chinese are picking up on the connections between two different viruses in pigs, be sure to read the full Pig333 report here.

Fatal disease associated with Swine Hepatitis E virus and Porcine circovirus 2 co-infection in four weaned pigs in China

17-Apr-2015 

Yifei Yang, et al. Fatal disease associated with Swine Hepatitis E virus and Porcine circovirus 2 co-infection in four weaned pigs in China. BMC Veterinary Research 2015, 11:77 doi:10.1186/s12917-015-0375-z

In recent decades, Porcine circovirus 2 (PCV2) infection has been recognized as the causative agent of postweaning multisystemic wasting syndrome, and has become a threat to the swine industry. Hepatitis E virus (HEV) is another high prevalent pathogen in swine in many regions of the world. PCV2 and HEV are both highly prevalent in pig
farms in China...

...HEV and PCV2 co-infection in piglets was detected in four out of seven dead pigs from two pig farms in Hebei, China, producing severe pathological changes. The natural co-infection of HEV and PCV2 in pigs in China has rarely been reported. We speculate that co-infection with PCV2 and HEV may bring some negative effect on pig production and recommend that more attention should be paid to this phenomenon.

British Election & MRSA in pigs

For the first time, MRSA is being seriously aired in the UK General Election Campaign by Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party - UKIP at the debate on TV last night.

It was not a particularly interesting or incisive comment, and aimed against the Labour Party, but it is an issue that could explode, especially if Farage takes a more serious interest.

We all know that some of the central issues for this election include the NHS, UK membership of the EU, and Scotland leaving the UK.

Farage stands directly opposite the Scottish National Party on pretty well all issues, with both leaders undeniably personally popular and both likely to be influential whatever the exact result.

Scotland is one of the very few countries in the world supposed to be free of MRSA in its pigs.

Nobody believes them. If they were free of MRSA, they would be shouting it from the rooftops as a triumph for Scottish science. That is undeniable. They also have a very poor record on other zoonotic public health issues.

If UKIP decide to raise the issue, and the implications for the rest of the UK, it is going to be very hard for the Scottish Nationalists to handle.

They won't be able to say with any credibility "We haven't found any MRSA in our pigs." and be taken seriously after the election.

Watch this space.

USA - Whole-Genome Sequencing - Consequences for Cover-Ups

On Monday we were writing about the extraordinary story of finding and identifying the body of King Richard lll, the repercussion of modern testing techniques, and also praising the Italians on similar work on Porcine Circovirus.

We developed the implications for the covered-up epidemic of Circovirus in pigs (PCV2) in England before 2000, and, in turn, its significance to the CSF and FMD epidemics that followed and also to the superbug crisis currently plaguing the world.

Now the USA leaps into the picture, in their own way, developing similar implications in  a paper published yesterday by the American Society for Microbiology.

Leaving aside the potential for bio-terrorism, bio-corruption, deception and incompetence can also be traced to source using exactly the same tools - and are being so deployed.

The days of hiding up animal disease epidemics dangerous to humans are not only over, but past sources will be revealed, and culprits exposed.

The net is closing about some very uneasy consciences.

Extract from the abstract and access to the full paper here.

Whole-Genome Sequencing in Outbreak Analysis

Published 15 April 2015


...Utilization of whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in outbreak analysis
facilitates the rapid and accurate identification of virulence factors
of the pathogen and can be used to identify the path of disease
transmission within a population and provide information on the
probable source. Molecular tools such as WGS are being refined and
advanced at a rapid pace to provide robust and higher-resolution
methods for identifying, comparing, and classifying pathogenic
organisms. If these methods of pathogen characterization are properly
applied, they will enable an improved public health response whether a
disease outbreak was initiated by natural events or by accidental or
deliberate human activity. The current application of next-generation
sequencing (NGS) technology to microbial WGS and microbial forensics
is reviewed...

• Citation Gilchrist CA, Turner SD, Riley MF, Petri WA, Jr, Hewlett EL. 15 April 2015. Whole-genome sequencing in outbreak analysis. Clin Microbiol Rev doi:10.1128/CMR.00075-13.

Richard lll, DNA, Cold Cases and Circovirus

A strange heading for a strange situation.

Zoonotic disease, that's an animal disease spreading to humans, has largely been an international blame game, with all nations and their often nationalistic farming communities seeking to escape blame and responsibility, by claiming it is all a "foreign" disease, illegally crossing their borders.

So the game was: hide up your own disease and headline everyone else's problems  - blame someone else, preferably a competitor and innocent.

This not very edifying blame game is now yesterday's fraud. Developments in England mark the way.

Few if us could ever expect that the body of King Richard lll, the last King of England to be killed in battle over 500 years ago, would be found and then identified by DNA analysis. We now know he was indeed crippled and the nature of his illness, something we could never have expected to know.

Many other mysteries are being solved.  A well in a new shopping mall, was excavated not far from the writer in Norwich, and the gathered scientists were moved to tears, when the announcement was made to an expectant group on TV. Their worst fears were realised. All the bodies, adult and children, had Jewish DNA - evidence of a medieval pogrom in England's green and pleasant land.

New science is daily unravelling mysteries and scandals their perpetrators thought hidden for ever.

We know that Porcine Circovirus was in Britain immediately before the disastrous Classical Swine Fever, and Foot and Mouth epidemics of 2000 and 2001. It was not called Porcine Circovirus then, and it has had many changes of names, usually for public relation's purposes, since.

Its creation and spread became a problem that the veterinary industry probably thought safely buried, even though the repercussions batter animal and human health ever since, not least the Superbug Crisis.

Antibiotics are needed to deal with the constant co-infections.

But now the bodies of forgotten deceptions are being exhumed.

The Italians are rushing to plug the gaps.

The source at PubFacts can be found here.


INT INTERNATIONAL TRADES, LOCAL SPREAD AND VIRAL EVOLUTION: THE CASE
OF PORCINE CIRCOVIRUS TYPE 2 (PCV2) STRAINS HETEROGENEITY IN ITALY.
2015Apr

International trades, local spread and viral evolution: the case of
Porcine circovirus type 2 (PCV2) strains heterogeneity in Italy.
Infect. Genet. Evol.
Infect Genet Evol 2015 Apr 6. Epub 2015 Apr 6.
Franzo Giovanni, Tucciarone Claudia M, Dotto Giorgia, Gigli
Alessandra, Ceglie Letizia, Drigo Michele
"

Porcine circovirus type 2 is one of the most widespread and economically relevant infections of swine. Four genotypes have been recognized, but currently, only three (PCV2a, PCV2b and PCV2d) are effectively circulating. The widespread livestock trade and rapid viral evolution have contributed to determining the high heterogeneity of PCV2 and the dispersal of potentially more virulent strains.
Italian swine farming and the related processing industry are relevant in the national economy.

Despite the noteworthy losses associated with direct and control measure costs, no data are currently available on the molecular epidemiology of PCV2 in Italy. Our study, which was intended to fill this gap, considered 75 completed genome PCV2 sequences, which were obtained from samples collected from the highly densely populated area of Northern Italy between 2007 and 2014.
Phylogenetic analysis and comparison with reference sequences demonstrated the co-circulation, with different prevalences, of PCV2a, PCV2b and PCV2d within the national borders, with PCV2b being the most  prevalent. Recombination between different genotypes was also proven to be frequent. Phylogeographic analysis demonstrated that the marked variability of Italian PCV2 strains can be attributable to multiple introduction events. The comparison of the phylogenetic analysis results, the location of different haplotypes and the international commercial routs of live pigs allow the speculation of several links as well as the role of Italy as both an importer and exporter of PCV2
haplotypes, mainly from and to European and Asian countries. A similarly intricate contact network was demonstrated within national borders, with different haplotypes being detected in the same province and different provinces harbouring the same haplotype.

Overall, this paper represents the first description of PCV2 in Italy and demonstrates that the high variability of circulating Italian strains is due to multiple introduction events, wide circulation within
national boundaries and rapid viral evolution.

Affiliation
Department of Animal Medicine, Production and Health (MAPS), University of Padua, Viale dell'Università 16, 35020 Legnaro (PD), Italy.NATIONAL TRADES, LOCAL SPREAD AND VIRAE

Pigs - It was Porcine Circovirus!

If you scroll down the sidebar on the left of this page, you will see the following:

"He is the originator of the "GARDINER HYPOTHESIS" which states:

 

Mutated Circovirus in pigs, the consequences treated with heavy use of antibiotics, is followed by MRSA in pigs and then MRSA and C.Diff epidemics in humans."

For many years, the writer repeatedly drew the world's attention to the secret circovirus outbreak that preceded the disastrous British epidemics of Classical Swine Fever and Foot and Mouth Disease in 2000 and 2001. The pigs were very sick with circovirus before the major epidemics hit.

The mighty prestigious British veterinary establishment got it wrong by covering up the disease, and a retired shipbroker, a scientific illiterate, despite being kicked about by crooks, stalked, threatened, lied about and fighting off multiple illnesses got it right, even giving evidence to Parliament and OLAF, the serious fraud squad of the EU. He even drove across the USA in 2005 in the aftermath of Katrina trying to alert America to the danger to the Prairies.

It is not even complicated. So simple, so obvious and so shame making for Britain's corrupt veterinary establishment. Now, we have the results of their mistakes and cover-ups killing children and old people in ever increasing numbers with superbugs, not least porcine MRSA, entering our homes and hospitals.

Their day is over. They are finished. The worst face charges of crimes against humanity, with their closest cronies giving evidence against them. The rump face external supervision and the rule of law.

Be sure to read the Farmers Weekly report in full here.

Stress makes pigs more susceptible to costly disease

Rhian Price
Friday 10 April 2015 14:57

...CVAD is a complex group of pig diseases - formerly known as post-weaning multi-systemic wasting syndrome - which cause diarrhoea, wasting, respiratory disease and death...

...However, for the first time, researchers at RVC have shown environmental stress from higher temperatures, crowding, or both, can induce symptoms attributed to PCVAD without any secondary infection. PCV2-infected pigs kept in temperatures above the comfort temperatures, or kept in pens smaller than current minimum guidelines, were more likely to show reduced weight gain and had higher viral loads than those kept in cooler temperatures or larger pens, the study showed...

Denmark - Human Carriers of MRSA cc398 Increase Sharply.

Human carriers of MRSA cc398 rise sharply in Denmark, especially in the most pig dense regions.

Britain continues to do absolutely nothing to protect its people.

We don't even know the extent of MRSA in the pigs. Scotland, incredibly, still claims to be MRSA free, despite importing breeding stock from Denmark.

But, there are now some signs of discontent and tension, in British farming and veterinary organisations, and dirty Defra, Britain's useless, devious and corrupt farming ministry.

As always, read in the Danish TV report in full here.

NUMBER OF CONTAMINATED WITH pig MRSA RISES DRAMATICALLY

Tuesday at 07-04-15. 18.27 - Charlotte Sølvsten

Especially in Southern Jutland, where the world's largest concentration of pigs per. capita exist, infection exploded and is the province where most are infected with porcine MRSA.

Last year, a total of 290 persons were registered with the infection alone here in South Jutland. This is an increase of 75 percent compared to last year here in our part of the country. 

Some South and Schleswigers already bearing infection in themselves, and they can not get rid of it again...

The development of the number of infected Danes with pig MRSA:
* In 2012, 233 Danes were infected with the pig-MRSA
* In 2013 it was increased to 648
* In 2014, the number has doubled to 1,271 Danes regsitreret with pig
MRSA. The 290 alone in South Jutland.

British superbug outbreak 'could kill 80,000'

The "Daily Telegraph" celebrated Easter Sunday with the above headline, published in the evening as the lead on the front page for Easter Monday morning.

The "Telegraph" is an important right of centre, business orientated,  national daily paper.

Britain is in an election campaign, the most important for generations. It is an election that may herald the break-up of Britain, with Scotland leaving the United Kingdom and Britain leaving the European Union.

So, this alarming report could not have come at a more significant time. The BBC News is also now carrying the story, and also on its website here.

Britain's corrupt veterinarians, Defra her agricultural ministry and their drug-dealer pals, will be sweating today.

The world is now on their tail and it is going to get much worse: much worse - crimes against humanity with all that that entails.

This is history on the making. Total reform of the British veterinary industry is now quite inevitable - royal charters removed and many of the leaders, past and present, investigated.

The writer has suffered constant stalking and threats, since 2000 for giving evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on the Classical Swine Fever scandal.

A system that cannot even protect witnesses to their own national legislature is in serious trouble and has to be totally reformed.

Not that OLAF, the serious Fraud Squad of the EU, were any better, although in fairness, they did try.

Make sure you follow the link to the "Daily Telegraph" here.

British superbug outbreak 'could kill 80,000'

A Government report warns that tens of thousands could die because of
new strains of bacteria and viruses resistant to drugs

By Matthew Holehouse, Political Correspondent

9:47PM BST 05 Apr 2015