[Dioxin-l] DES in "hormone-free" boef/Altzh's & Testost.

[Tony Tweedale]

US Agency Probes Illegal Hormone in Beef Export

WASHINGTON, Feb 04 (Reuters) - The United States is still trying to
determine the source of an illegal hormone that Swiss government officials
found in a shipment of US beef, an Agriculture Department aide said on
Wednesday.

Beth Gaston, a spokeswoman for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)=
,
said that the Swiss government found traces of diethylstilbestrol (DES), a
carcinogen, in two samples of US beef in July of this year. "This is the
subject
of a joint FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] and FSIS investigation,"
Gaston said. "We have no evidence that this is anything other than an
aberration."

The finding, reported on Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, has raised
questions about the effectiveness of the Agriculture Department's testing fo=
r
illegal hormones.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition and food safety
advocacy group, has urged that the results of the government's investigation=
 be
turned over to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.

The FDA banned the use of DES as a growth promotant in food-producing animal=
s
in 1979. The FSIS stopped regularly testing for DES in its domestic meat
programs in 1991 to focus its resources in problem areas, Gaston said. She
added that the agency was planning to do a spot check for DES this year as
part of
a regular rotation of testing for residues that are considered less of a
problem.

On the international front, FSIS tests for DES in its "additional residue
testing
program" for the European Union and has found no residues. Switzerland is no=
t
a member of the EU.

In its article, The Wall Street Journal said that the Swiss government had
barred shipments of beef from two US companies as a result of the DES
discovery.

Sherlyn Manson, a spokeswoman for Farmland National Beef Packing Co., one of
the firms, said that the company was investigating whether the beef might ha=
ve
come from its plant in Liberal, Kansas. "We don't know that. That is what's
being alleged. We have been cooperating with USDA. They reviewed our records
6 months ago," Manson said.

=46armland National Beef does not export beef to Switzerland or the EU, Mans=
on
said. But it does sell beef to Bruss Co. of Chicago, the other firm
mentioned in
the article and a subsidiary of IBP Inc., the largest US beefpacker.

Gary Mickelson, a spokesman for IBP, said that neither the Swiss government
nor the US government has notified Bruss of any problems with product shippe=
d
to Switzerland last summer. Bruss has "heard and seen secondhand information=
"
alleging some problem, but company records show "none of the beef in questio=
n
came from an IBP plant," Mickelson said.

Neither Mickelson and Manson would speculate on how DES might have shown up
in the shipments. "DES has been banned for 20 years, so this is an extremely
unusual situation," Mickelson said.

=46armland National Beefpacking also considers the finding an aberration. "W=
e
can't imagine anybody [in the cattle market] would be using that," Manson
said.

CSPI executive director Michael Jacobson called the discovery "distressing."=
 He
said, "Similar contamination could be present in beef consumed by Americans.
US consumers need immediate assurance that the beef they consume does not
contain that drug."


Copyright =A9 1999 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is
expressly prohibited without the prior written
consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for
any errors or delays in the content, or for any
actions taken in reliance thereon.

---




Testosterone Affects Processing of Beta Amyloid Precursor Protein


By Alka Agrawal, PhD

WESTPORT, Feb 01 (Reuters Health) - Testosterone skews the processing of
beta-amyloid precursor protein towards a harmless or even beneficial form
of beta-amyloid peptide and away from the form associated with Alzheimer's
disease, according to new research from The Rockefeller University in New
York City.

"The testosterone directs the metabolism so that much more goes to the good
pathway and much less to the bad pathway," Dr. Paul Greengard told Reuters
Health. "In other words, you get much less beta-amyloid [peptides] and you
get more of this secretory amyloid precursor protein which is considered by
most people to be beneficial for the health of the nerve cells."

In the February 1st issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, Dr. Greengard and colleagues report on experiments in which they
added testosterone to either rat neuroblastoma cells containing the gene for
human beta-amyloid precursor protein or primary rat neurons.

In rat neuroblastoma cells, they found that testosterone caused a 50% to 75%
increase in the levels soluble beta-amyloid precursor protein-alpha, which
is harmless to neurons, and a 30% to 45% decrease in the levels of amyloid
beta peptides found in Alzheimer's disease. Treatment with estrogen produced
similar results, and similar results were also obtained in rat neurons.

In contrast, treatment with the sterol cholesterol led to an increase in the
secretion of beta-amyloid peptides with no effect on the section of soluble
beta-amyloid precursor protein-alpha, while treatment with the steroid
corticosterone had no effect on the secretion of either protein.

"In older men and in older women, there's a decrease in the level of
testosterone, so the thought is that one might do some trials of
testosterone in
aging men to see whether it would reduce the incidence of Alzheimer's diseas=
e
as estrogen appears to do in women," Dr. Greengard said. "In addition, since
women need both estrogen and testosterone, instead of just using estrogen in
the treatment of postmenopausal women, the thought is to try to combine
estrogen and testosterone."

Preliminary data from other laboratories have suggested that the results
showing the increase in secreted beta-amyloid precursor protein and the
decrease in beta-amyloid peptides after estrogen or testosterone treatment
are holding up in whole animals, he told Reuters Health.

He said that his laboratory is currently studying how estrogen and
testosterone affect processing of beta-amyloid precursor protein. Early
results suggest that they might hasten the transit of beta-amyloid precursor
protein through the cell, leaving less time for proteases to gain access to =
the
protein and degrade it to the harmful beta-amyloid peptides.

Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2000;97:1202-1205.


                                                  Copyright =A9 1999 Reuters
Ltd. All rights
                                                  reserved. Republication
or redistribution of
                                                  Reuters content is
expressly prohibited without
                                                  the prior written consent
of Reuters. Reuters
                                                  shall not be liable for
any errors or delays in the
                                                  content, or for any
actions taken in reliance
                                                  thereon.