har kommit till Sverige. För en del är detta en skrämmande nyhet som lär få dem att fundera över sin köttkonsumtion. Sedan galna kosjukan uppmärksammades i mitten av 1990-talet i samband, har en del forskare fått för sig att det måste finnas ett samband mellan just BSE (galna kosjukan) och vad som lär vara en mänsklig motsvarighet till samma sjukdom, nämligen den nyare Creutzfeldt-Jakob sjukdom. Teorin är att en del människor har fått denna sjukdom genom konsumtion av infekterat kött. Problemet med denna teori är att det verkar inte finnas några som helst fakta som stöder den. Steven Milloy skrev för några år sedan:

Though laboratory testing seemed to indicate that BSE and nvCJD were similar, no one could determine with certainty whether and how BSE was related to nvCJD.

There were no geographic areas in the U.K. with significantly higher incidence of people with nvCJD and there were no cases of nvCJD among “high risk” groups such as farmers, slaughterhouse workers or butchers.

When researchers considered the possibility that nvCJD was caused by consumption of beef from BSE-infected cattle, no correlations could be established between nvCJD and any specific meat or dairy product because consumption was so widespread.

Moreover, no one could establish whether any of the nvCJD cases ever consumed beef from diseased cattle.

Researchers nevertheless became fixated on the idea that consumption of infected beef was the culprit behind nvCJD after it was discovered that 1980s slaughterhouse practices and meat preparation inadvertently might have allowed diseased tissue to be mixed up into a variety of packaged meat products such as hot dogs, sausages, beef patties, luncheon meats.

Mad cow mania was on.

But the infected beef theory doesn’t explain why nvCJD tended to occur in young people – most cases have occurred among 15- to 25-year-olds. It doesn’t offer the slightest clue as to why only about 130 nvCJD cases have occurred in a British population of 60 million exposed to potentially contaminated beef products. (”Mad Cow Disease – Where’s the Beef?”)

Vidare är det tydligen så att en av de främstar företrädarna för teorin om att det är prioner – en speciell sorts protein – som ligger bakom sjukdomen, nämligen Stanley Pruisner, inte har kunnat backa upp denna teori med någon vetenskap. Steven Milloy igen:

Despite Pruisner’s Nobel Prize, however, it has not been scientifically established that prions cause any sort of disease ? a fact only reluctantly acknowledged by organizations such as the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council and the National Institutes of Health.

Despite almost 10 years of intense research into the causes and potential ramifications of mad cow disease, the prion theory still does not satisfy the basic scientific test known as Koch’s Postulates for whether a particular microorganism, such as a prion, causes a specific disease, such as mad cow.

Developed by German physician and bacteriologist Robert Koch in 1890, the basic criteria of Koch’s Postulates as applied to the prion theory would be: (1) prions are present in every case of the mad cow disease; (2) prions must be isolated from a diseased cow and grown in pure culture; (3) mad cow disease should be reproduced when the cultured prions are inoculated into a healthy cow; and (4) the prion must be recoverable from the experimentally infected cow.

“The best-kept secret in this field is that [prions] in any form have never shown infectivity,” said the head of Yale University’s surgery department to the United Press International’s Steve Mitchell.

There certainly have been a few exceptions to Koch’ Postulates, but no one has made a case for why prions might be another such exception. (”Still No Beef to Mad Cow Mania”)

Så vad betyder då allt detta? Trots att det enligt livsmedelsverket inte finns några faror med att äta kött, och trots att det inte finns så värst mycket vetenskap bakom den rädsla som galna kosjukan väcker, lär detta enskilda fall resultera i att man i Sverige måste, på grund av EU-regler, införa en massa nya dyra procedurer, som kommer att göra köttet dyrare för oss konsumenter. Så skräpvetenskap är inte bara strunt, det är dyrt strunt!