From Karen Selick, on The Justice Report:
The CFIA decides that formerly reportable disease, Anaplasmosis, will henceforth no longer be a reportable disease. So now what about Scrapie? Click image to learn more about the disease.
“Montana Jones today brought to my attention an interesting article (“CFIA to give up on wiping out anaplasmosis”) published at Grainews.ca, a website that provides daily news on agriculture topics to Canadians. Here’s the link.
I’ve never heard of anaplasmosis before, but the article makes it clear that, like scrapie, it has been classified as a “reportable” disease under Canadian law until this latest announcement. Anaplasmosis is apparently caused by a parasitic micro-organism and has been detected in wild animals (deer) as well as in cattle, sheep and goats.
Anaplasmosis shares the following additional characteristics with scrapie:
- it does not pose a human health risk
- it causes a loss of productivity in affected cattle (decline in milk production), just as scrapie causes a decline in productivity for sheep (loss of wool, fewer lambs)
- it is “rarely fatal” in young animals, but mortality rises in older animals
- the disease is of “economic importance” to the cattle industry, as scrapie allegedly is to the sheep industry
- once an animal is infected, it remains a carrier of the disease for the rest of its life.
The CFIA has apparently decided that “…the continuing attempt to eradicate the disease within Canada may not be feasible.” Therefore, they have taken it off their list of reportable diseases.
Last year, when I was working on the judicial review application for Montana Jones to quash the destruction order for her rare Shropshire sheep, an expert on prion diseases expressed the opinion to me that scrapie was also impossible to eradicate, and that highly placed scientific staff within the CFIA were well aware of that fact….”
What is Anaplasmosis?
The Bovine 
Thanks to the webmaster for including the link to the Center for Disease Control. When I looked up anaplasmosis there, I learned that contrary to the opinion of the CFIA, the illness CAN affect humans.
Karen,
Sorry, but I believe anaplasmosis in humans is caused by a different organism and is not an issue here.
I think it should be encouraging that CFIA are prepared to make changes n’est pas?
I don’t know why CFIA is delisting anaplasmosis, except the recent warming trend in the Northern Hemisphere might be allowing the insect vectors to become more established in the border-states. CFIA can police the animal-traffic from the USA but not the insect-traffic. Hence the border becomes increasingly ‘unprotectable’ and Canada has to live with the disease too. Just guessing, though.
The article from the Justice Report sounds as if Montana Jones’ sheep were diseased with scrapie. I thought they were found to be disease free? Which is it?
Of course, once the sheep are dead what difference could it possibly make . . .
Maybe the all-worshipped scientists should get off dead-center and start looking for ways to test for scrapie BEFORE the animal has to be killed. Nah. That might help someone and they’re not there to help. All of the agencies and “scientists” are high on power. They all have that “because I can” attitude. Consequently the rest of us are screwed because of their arrogance.
I think it’s that the sheep were suspected of having scrapie since they belong to a genotype which is supposedly more susceptible to that disease.
Thanks, D. I have made a change to the Justice Report blog to prevent any possible misunderstanding. The CFIA suspected that the sheep might have scrapie but in fact all the sheep that were eventually found, killed and tested were negative.
That was simply an excuse used to get rid of the sheep. I suspect you know that and so does almost everyone else. Canada was trying to figure out a way to get rid of those sheep – for whatever reason they might have – and they were gonna find a reason or invent one, whichever one worked. It’s harassment plain and simple. Wonder who and what their next target will be.