Very interesting article and you wrote it in such a way that an educated lay person could understand it. This article points to the need to identify and contain scrapie before large areas of soild are contaminated. Carol570cjk (talk) 02:04, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
Very interesting, especially the findings for the attempted eradication in Iceland. Could you mention what specific disinfection was used in the Iceland example? Just thinking that it may help readers realize that standard disinfectants are not real effective for Scrapie. ALso found the use of lichens to digest it fascinating!!
Last thing - if you think it would help could you give a 'state of the union' for diagnostic detection of scrapie? I saw mention of Bioassay but wondered if there are any in-vitro assays currently in use.
The disinfectant was not listed but the approved solution for the US Scrapie program is a 2% Clorox solution and I can only assume that it was the disinfectant used in Iceland (everything else is too expensive). Currently the only confirmatory test for scrapie is the detection of the protease resistant protein (PrP) in Brain , lymph node and tonsil. The rectal biopsy has been approved for live animal testing since 2008.I wish there was a blood test that was validated for use in live animals - it would make my job easier (had to euthanize 27 sheep and lambs last week.)570nlh (talk) 19:29, 7 November 2011 (UTC)Nancy
Thanks Nancy, the upper string of questions was from me (Wayne) before I knew how to sign these. :-) Thanks for the responses! Yes, I get the sense that prions, like some mycoplasmas only worse, are a real challenge for current diagnostic tests! Thanks! (570wac (talk) 22:41, 11 November 2011 (UTC))
This is news to me, but apparently a lot of mammals participate in placentophagy. Do any animals vets have insight as to whether a sheep (for example) may consume another sheep's placenta? Or even lick it? This could be a significant if sheep have many birthing events per lifetime? I'm not sure if this is important, but I could see it as another 'exposure pathway.' Thoughts? (570ajk (talk) 16:45, 9 November 2011 (UTC)) That is how scrapie is spread - via birth fluids and placenta - the lambs ingest both.
Nice article. There are too many significant figures reported in the sentence, "If an adult sheep ate 400g/kg of soil as predicted by D. McGarth and et al. then the average sheep would ingest 45,345.452 g ..." Suggest dropping the ".452" or perhaps stating "would ingest approximately 45,000 g" Similarly, I have difficulties with the exactness reported in "Hamsters fed with contaminated soil exhibited first scrapie- associated symptoms at 13166 days after the first application. The hamsters reached the terminal stage of scrapie at 162612 days after the first feeding." I cannot fathom being able to reproduce any study with such exactness, there must be an error bound associated with these results so either report the associated error or show the confidence interval. 570jdw (talk) 16:48, 9 November 2011 (UTC) I understand and will correct.
I'm confused...are you adding this section to an existing wiki article (i.e. Scrapie) or is this a stand alone article? If you plan to make this a stand alone article, then I suggest you include more background information and perhaps a title. It was a little hard to jump into. Otherwise, I liked the risk assessment spin you put on the risk of prion transmission to sheep! 570ces — Preceding unsigned comment added by 570ces (talk • contribs) 23:56, 9 November 2011 (UTC) This was supposed to be an insert in the wiki scrapie article. This was suggested by Dr. Wolt. It is not a stand alone article.
Hi there, this is Wayne. I liked your article for sure, just thought I'd throw a picture in there to color it up a bit. Take it or leave it, can understand if you don't want it in there but for yahoos like me a little picture helps hold one's attention. :-) (570wac (talk) 21:39, 10 November 2011 (UTC)) Wayne, I had some nice pictures and graphs however I could not get them to load up - I am wiki challenged. Maybe I will give it another go. Thank you 570nlh (talk) 16:04, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi-- Great eye-opening article. I didn't know that the prions could still be active in the soil and for so long. This is very alarming, actually. How are we supposed to control for scrapie? Is this the case for all prions like BSE? Scary..... Ceci570csc (talk) 02:59, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
That is the dilemma. Even when we have removed all of the high risk sheep and C&D the lambing facilities there is not a way currently to remove the prions from the whole premise ( and some producers let the sheep give birth in the fields). They are working on the creating a top dressing that could be used - still in research stages and yes, it applies to all TSE's (BSE, CWD)570nlh (talk) 16:04, 13 November 2011 (UTC)
Hi Nancy. Interesting stuff! Are there any other environmental or climate factors that contribute to PRP-Sc stability? It seems as though they are more likely to persist longer in cooler climates. 570mpp (talk) 02:57, 15 November 2011 (UTC) I have never seen any information to indicate that temperature is a factor - something to look at though.570nlh (talk) 20:36, 15 November 2011 (UTC)
Cool article on the RA of scrapie. Would it be of benefit to discuss the risk reduction steps taken with the ear tags in sheep and goats? Perhaps some mention in the conclusion of the regulations (or other risk reduction methods) in place would be a good follow-up to your RA discussion. (570ddt (talk) 02:26, 16 November 2011 (UTC)) I don't know if ID compliance is really a risk reduction - it has to do with traceability but not reducing the amount of prion exposure or consumption...Dr. Wolt what do you think?570nlh (talk) 16:07, 19 November 2011 (UTC)
questions edit
Hi Nancy! Nice article. I am assuming that this could be appended to the Scrapie page. Is that your plan? I put the Sc in superscript format....hope that is OK. Near the end, you report some results with two numbers of days, like "250, 651 days" or something like that. I couldn't figure out if that was a range of days or two different results relating to 2 different treatments. Can you clarify that for me? Thanks! -Claire 570ceh (talk) 17:02, 16 November 2011 (UTC) 2 different results570nlh (talk) 16:07, 19 November 2011 (UTC)