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— MANGANESE & INFRASOUND — THE LINK TO MAD Cow DISEASE — MANGANESE INFRASOUND — Cow THE LINK TO MAD DISEASE The rise in rates of BSE and vCJD is likely the result of a high manganese/ low copper mineral imbalance which compromises the mammalian brain's capacity to deal with incoming shock-bursts of infrasound. Part 1 of 2 r Nhe White Sands Missile Range is an extensive spread of US military—controlled cactus country that spans the southernmost extremes of the San Andres Mountains in New Mexico. There is an eerie atmosphere to the place. A Department of Natural Resources truck kicks up the dust across the droughty canyon, its engines reverberating in an agitated mode. It stops at the main entrance gates along the 12-foot-high perimeter fence. One of the wildlife officers gets out and walks to security, seemingly oblivious to the distant thump of a missile exploding across the range. He is clearly preoccupied with the more important task of slaughtering animals that have suc- cumbed to this so-called "hyperinfectious" disease. The truck is soon on its way, loosing itself within the thousands of acres of parched-up military compound. They've come to investigate yet another new eruption of chronic wasting disease (CWD)—the deer equivalent of "mad cow disease" (BSE). This outbreak is particularly significant, in that it represents the first cases of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) disease recorded in a deer herd within the state of New Mexico. Furthermore, the affected herd has been confined behind the top-security perimeter fence for several decades. This latest epidemiological aberration delivers a serious challenge to the viability of the conventional consensus on the origins of CWD. It has rumbled the cornerstones of insti- tutionalised "expertise", questioning those who have plumped for the assumption that some unconventional "hyperinfectious" agent is spreading via body to body contact through the deer populations. So how did the "infectious agent" jump the 500-mile gap between the CWD hotspot zone in Colorado and the CWD-free deer residing within the White Sands Missile Range? The "experts" were baffled. But, true to form, this latest challenge to the official theory was conveniently obfuscated into oblivion, outcast as some illusory mirage that just hap- pened one day in the New Mexico desert. But the answer is only evident to those who care to scratch a bit deeper than the dust. For they cannot help but notice some overt environmental features that exclusively pre- dominate this unique location—factors which are invariably shared by every single TSE cluster location around the world. Before the military came, White Sands was an industrial centre for the mining of man- ganese oxide and wulfenite ores (note that wulfenite contains the copper-chelating molyb- denum metal). The museum-quality black crystals lay scattered across the top of the ter- rain. They twinkle out a kind of sombre resonance under the desert sun, emanating the haunted history of the place. And since the military has occupied the range, the US authorities have been actively engaged in monitoring the unique intensity of infrasonic shock-bursts that are radiated by the explosions of their own missiles. The poor deer herd has played guinea pig to an unwitting experiment that has cracked the causal riddle of spongiform disease. by Mark Purdey © 2002, 2003 High Barn Farm Elworthy, Taunton, Somerset TA43PX United Kingdom Email: MadCowPurdey@aol.com Website: http:/Avww.markpurdey.com The BSE Debacle Since 1986, the infamous novel neurodegenerative syndrome BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) has insidiously blighted the heartbeat of British rural life. The disease has annihilated thousands of head of cattle and a growing number of young people, while creating a fierce battleground between nations, vested interests, political parties, farmers, victim support groups and consumers. APRIL — MAY 2003 NEXUS * 25 An Underground, Ecodetective Journey www.nexusmagazine.com