Vedi anche: AIDS, Epatiti e Mucca Pazza connection: Bio-Rad

Ci prendono per i fondelli a ripetizione. Elisa e Western Blot, gli stessi test utilizzati per identificare il falso virus HIV, vengono riciclati dalla commissione europea per diagnosticare la "Mucca Pazza". Se per gli omini di Bruxelles (DG-14) fosse applicabile la legge (vedi anche l'affaire "guerre all'uranio"), sarebbero già andati in galera.

   In 1999, the European Commission (EC) evaluated four key tests. Three companies or groups performed very well (CEA, Prionics and Enfer Scientific). The fourth test was carried out at the VLA, and didn’t perform as well as was hoped but has been modified and is being re-evaluated by the EC in the next round of tests from September 2000.

   All four tests have only been evaluated on adult cattle showing clinical signs of BSE and confirmed to have the disease. They have not yet been proved to be effective in detecting infected animals a long time before they develop disease. This usually happens at four, five or six years of age.

   The tests are:-

Prionics - A Swiss company, with a test called a western blot, which takes a brain sample collected after death, and stains it on a gel through which an electric current has been passed, looking for abnormal PrP (or prion protein). This works very well, and quickly, allowing a 24 hour turnaround in practice. The Swiss authorities are using this test to screen fallen stock (cattle that die on farm or are killed close to death), and also casualty animals (healthy, but possibly with broken limbs) as well as a proportion of adult cows slaughtered for human consumption. The VLA has bought in the technology from Prionics to carry out Western blotting and use this to assist with diagnosis of BSE and scrapie.  The French authorities also use this test to survey casualty, slaughtered animals and fallen stock.

Enfer Scientific - based in Ireland, using a test called an ELISA (enzyme linked immunosorbent assay). The antibody used by the company was manufactured by another British company called Proteus. The assay, like many ELISAs, is very sensitive, and allows rapid turnaround (again with results usually within 24 hours), and theoretically has a much greater throughput than the western blot. It is the sort of technology that can be partly automated. The company have been commercially testing spinal cord from cattle slaughtered for human consumption in Ireland for a couple of years, and have also tested cattle from BSE affected herds that have been killed by the Irish Authorities.

CEA - a research group in France, have produced a test called a sandwich  immunoassay. It is very like an ELISA test. It also tests brain tissue collected after death. Because it appears to be more sensitive than the others so far it is to be used to see if it can detect abnormal protein in the wall of the small intestine of experimentally infected calves. It will also be used to see if it can detect abnormal protein in the brain and spinal cord of experimentally infected animals at an earlier stage than other tests.

Wallac - EG&G Wallac have produced the DELFIA test, also highly sensitive, but which performed less well in the hands of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) in the EU evaluation.  This test has been proposed for re-evaluation by the EC.