Here you can find my comments about Veterinary Medicine, Science, Surfing ,Travel, Horses and what ever interests me that day. I'm a board certified
specialist in Internal Medicine and this is my experiment with the Blogosphere. I will post as much as I'm able and provide links from around the interwebs that I feel are worthwhile. I hope you enjoy it.
Alan Weldon DVM Dipl.ACVIM
Jacksonville Equine Associates
There is no such thing as West Nile Virus...What an IDIOT
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Here is an interesting ....wrong word....idiotic article that was recently published called "There is no such thing as West Nile Virus" . The AAEP sage Dr David Ramey found this and posted it on the AAEP list serve. The author" Ramiel Nagel is an alternative medicine author devoting his time towards helping free the world of disease consciousness." It seems Mr Nagel is a full on member of the Tin foil hat society and black helicopter conspiracy group equating West Nile Virus with the easter bunny and santa Claus.....and all caused by evil drug/pesticide companies. "Pesticide manufacturers, pharmaceutical giants, the U.S. government, industry scientists, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), State and County government agencies believe in their own fairy tales. But they find those children's stories too boring and too happy. They wanted something dark and sinister. So they rewrote the fairytale and thought of some scary name that evokes fear of the unknown: "West Nile Virus". As Dr ramey points out.....just what was it that was killing all of those horses. Nagel is of the opinion that all disease is cause by environmental sources and not by "germs". While there are diseases caused by environment toxins to be sure, but to say that bacteria and viruses are not pathogenic is positively medieval in thinking. He even thinks that viruses have not been identified "West Nile Virus is not the only virus to never have been truly isolated. HIV, the virus believed to cause AIDS, also does not exist." There have been many electron microscopic images taken of pathogenic viruses over the years...here are two photos. His argument is that these bugs just show up after the body has been damaged by diet or environmental sources.....what a coincidence. If you can inject WNV into an animal and the animal develops the disease...well.....I guess to us stupid scientists that would be a clue. Here I go again...being a heretic and blasphemer.....I can't wait to hear from all of those Holistic, 3rd world medicine, flat earth society types...I can hear it now..."Burn him, Liar..unbeliever". As I have said over and over...it have to be evidence based and follow the scientific method. Oh and for Mr Nagel's daughter...brush your teeth, it's the Strep that's causing your cavities. Tell this guy there is no West Nile Virus
I totally get that this guy is of the foil hat variety -- but you know, I'm sometimes surprised. One of the vets at New Bolton told me that there are many in their "practice" that have concluded that horses don't get Lyme disease. I understand why this is more debatable than, say, the existence of a virus. But every other horse I know of in Eastern PA has been diagnosed with Lyme at some point.
Stacey It's not uncommom for horses to test positive for Lyme disease, it simply means they were exposed and have a dectectable antibody response. They may have never developed clinical disease, but many lameness or behavioral problems are blamed on Lyme disease....and if you test for it and it's positive they assume that was the cause when it may not have been. To prove an active infection you must demonstrate at least a 4 fold increase in the antibody titer several days apart. In research cases where horses were innoculated with Borellia...clinical disease was not produced making one wonder if Lyme disease occurs as a clinical disease in the horse unlike other species.
There have been several horse show signs of acute liver dysfunction recently while eating Purina feeds. The company seems to have jumped on this quickly and found an aflatoxin (mold toxin) contamination from one of their suppliers. It only affects 3 of their plants and the North eastern United States.The following states are under the recall, Connecticut; Delaware; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; More info on Aflatoxins can be found HERE . " Aflatoxins are potent toxic, carcinogenic, mutagenic, immunosuppressive agents, produced as secondary metabolites by the fungus Aspergillus flavus and A. parasiticus on variety of food products. Among 18 different types of aflatoxins identified, major members are aflatoxin B1, B2, G1 and G2. Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) is normally predominant in amount in cultures as well as in food products. Pure AFB1 is pale-white to yellow crystalline, odorless so...
Horse serum has been used for years as a souce of "gamma globulins" (anti-bodies) for many species including man. Now a group of scientists in China are using antibody fragments from horses to fight the H5N1 virus. "The researchers included Jiahai Lu, PhD, of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China. They're among experts worldwide working on bird flu treatments." The article is in MedicineNet.com and was written by Miranda Hitti from WebMD. "First, the scientists prepared H5N1 virus in hen's eggs. Next, they immunized horses to make antibodies to H5N1. Lu and colleagues took fragments of those antibodies, mixed them with H5N1 virus, and then spread the mixture on plates holding dog cells. Dog cells were only exposed to H5N1 or the horse antibody fragments. For comparison, other dog cells were left alone, without either H5N1 or the horse antibodies' fragments. The researchers checked on the dog cells every day for the next five...
( angelfire cartoons ) Just to set the record straight....this is a SYNDROME. That means it is a condition with multiple potential causes that has a unique set of symptoms. In this case the symptom is head shaking, this is either horizontal, vertical or rotary and frequently resembles a nervous twitch. Sometimes this is so uncontrollable that the behavior becomes almost manic and dangerous. Over the years many different causes have been attibuted to causing head shaking syndrome, including (1) ear mites (2) allergic rhinitis (3) ocular disease (4) Trigeminal neuritis (5) dental disease and (6) photic headshaking. One, from the fever swamps of the internet , links it to vaccines ( see my previous post about my thoughts on holistics) One older study noted that these horses were frequently over 8 years of age, Throughbred or Warm Blood, owned by 40+ year old women used for hunter/jumper or dressage. Additional studies have linked this to the time of year (seasonal) and most recently, to b...
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It's not uncommom for horses to test positive for Lyme disease, it simply means they were exposed and have a dectectable antibody response. They may have never developed clinical disease, but many lameness or behavioral problems are blamed on Lyme disease....and if you test for it and it's positive they assume that was the cause when it may not have been. To prove an active infection you must demonstrate at least a 4 fold increase in the antibody titer several days apart. In research cases where horses were innoculated with Borellia...clinical disease was not produced making one wonder if Lyme disease occurs as a clinical disease in the horse unlike other species.