Native USA Version of BSE?

mmiller@pcsia.com
Fri, 27 Aug 1999 12:33:00 -0500

Sometime back, the local PBS station had to fill some time from some
commerical length programs being aired. Instead of running ads for
underwriters or upcoming programs, they ran a short film from Arkansas
about the Bald Eagle die offs occuring there. Bald Eagles are dying in
several west central lakes. No virus or bacterial cause was found in the
otherwise healthy birds. Only the brains were abnormal (white spots on the
slide, I think) and the eagles before dying were very uncoordinated and
staggered around. Coots, also exhibit this same disease, so the program,
suggested the Bald Eagles might be picking up the "disease" from eating them.

I thought, "the dying eagles stagger just like the cows in Britian, they
are no doubt eating dead diseased animals with similar symptons and no
known causative agent can be found : BINGO, there just might be a prion
disease for birds too " and moved on until NOVA reaired "The Brain Eater"
show which I had missed first time around. In the NOVA program, they were
looking at US cattle for a native version of BSE to little avail.

I don't know anything much about this area as I am an engineer by training
but the similarities are obvious even to the novice. Since the Arkansa
program ended with the mystery unsolved, I ask those of you on the list who
are experienced in this field, could a prion type disease explain the die
offs of Bald Eagles in Arkansas?

Mike Miller

To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".

All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail