Rick Zemanek’s Insight article (Advocate, June 20) treats chronic wasting as a disease, caused by an unknown pathogen (germ).
An alternative is provided by Britisher Mark Purdey, an organic farmer in Somerset who resisted the national government’s requirement to inoculate cows against the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalitis, or mad cow disease) in the 1980s.
Purdey, trained in zoology, recognized that his cows could not have been exposed to any supposed infective agent, and suspected most cattle that died of BSE could not either.
Purdey’s book Animal Pharm details his struggles and his findings about chronic wasting disease (CWD) in deer, elk, moose, bison, scrapie in sheep, and similar ailments. He also researched Creutzfeld Jakob disease in humans, which has symptoms similar to BSE and CWD.
The conditions result from animals grazing on foods and water low in copper, found in areas straddling the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, and around the globe where BSE and CWD occur. Low or missing copper causes spongelike holes to open up when brain structure prions misfold, destroying ability to control body chemistry, muscles and growth.
These conditions develop only in animals (including humans) with certain already-identified genetic backgrounds where heavy metals are present in the air, vegetation and water.
Thus, programs to eradicate CWD by vaccines, slaughter or stopping game ranching will have no effect.
Heavy metals come from weapons ranges, airports, plane fuel exhausts, pesticides, herbicides, other organophosphate chemicals and industrial effluents and fumes.
Purdey succeeded with inexpensive experiments — salt licks and feed with copper added for cows and wildlife; seeding or spraying with edible copper; adding copper to water sources, etc.
Purdey’s book Animal Pharm can be supplemented by going to markpurdey.com. The website is better organized and more tightly argued than the book, which was hastily assembled shortly after Purdey died.
Purdey did a speaking tour of the Prairie provinces in 2004.
Ken Collier is a local activist and writer.