EPA Abandons Fraudulent Risk Assessment On Biosolids
Neurodegenerative disease is the fastest-growing cause of death in the world. Fifty years ago, brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, autism, chronic wasting disease, mad cow disease and others were non-factors in the global health picture. Because of the infectious nature of most brain diseases, the world is drowning in infectious waste. As more and more people contract neurodegenerative disease, the more toxic and deadly wastewater streams become. Neurotoxins in human waste are spreading far and wide thanks to misinformation and mismanagement by governments and industry.
The surge in brain diseases began in the 1970s, when the U.S. EPA proclaimed that toxic sewage sludge from our largest cities was too toxic and destructive to dump at sea. The toxic soup was killing entire underwater ecosystems. Ocean dumping of sewage sludge threatened the fishing and tourism industries of coastal towns. This insanity had to stop.
Unfortunately, these stewards of the environment and public health decided that dumping tons of unwanted sewage sludge on innocent citizens on land made sense–as in dollars and cents. The move saved cities billions of dollars, while creating a multi-billion dollar criminal industry.
It was quickly determined that sewage sludge would make an excellent fertilizer for farms, ranches, forests, parks, school grounds, golf courses and our gardens. It hired a PR firm to brand these toxins as something harmless and even beneficial to the world. They settled on the term biosolids. Bioterrorism is much more accurate because sewage sludge contains anything that people and industries dump down the toilet or the drain. The concept of wastewater treatment is a joke. At most, it separates the water from the solids. Most pathogens, including deadly proteins called prions, leave the wastewater treatment plant intact—ready for dumping.
Dr. Stanley Prusiner, an American neuroscientist from the University of California at San Francisco, earned a Nobel Prize in 1997 for discovering and characterizing deadly prions (PREE-on) and prion disease, also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). The operative word is “transmissible.” These infectious proteins are involved with most forms of neurodegenerative disease. The global epidemic is all about the prion contagion, which migrates, mutates and multiplies as it moves up the food chain.
President Obama awarded Prusiner the National Medal of Science in 2010 to recognize the importance of his research. Unfortunately, Prusiner’s science is being ignored and we all are facing a public health disaster because of the negligence and reckless disregard for public health.
TSE is a spectrum disease that varies in severity and symptoms. In humans, the spectrum includes Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and an extremely aggressive version known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). The prion spectrum varies in severity. The diagnosis varies depending on which region of the brain is impacted first. When the presenting symptom is memory loss in humans, the diagnoses flow along the following chart.
Prions are a deadly and unstoppable. They kill with unparalleled efficiency. Prusiner claims that all forms of TSE are caused by infectious prions. Prion disease often is described as a wasting disease that causes a loss of body mass and brain mass.
Studies confirm that people and animals dying of prion disease are infectious to people near them. Infectious prions are in the skin, urine, feces, blood, mucus and saliva of each victim. These infectious bodily fluids are contributing to the rapid spread of Alzheimer’s and other mutations of prion disease.
“There is now real evidence of the potential transmissibility of Alzheimer’s,” says Thomas Wiesniewski M.D. a prion and Alzheimer’s researcher at New York University School of Medicine. “In fact, this ability to transmit an abnormal conformation is probably a universal property of amyloid-forming proteins (prions).”
Unfortunately, thanks to reckless EPA policy, wastewater treatment plants are spreading this infectious waste because they are incapable of stopping prions. All by-products and discharges from wastewater treatment plants are infectious waste, which are contributing to the global epidemic of neurodegenerative disease among humans, wildlife and livestock. Sewage sludge (biosolids) and wastewater reclamation are still causing widespread contamination today. In fact, the U.S. EPA admitted in November 2018 that it could not assess the risks associated with dumping sewage sludge on land–a practice that it promoted for more than 40 years. In fact, it encouraged other nations to follow its flawed/fraudulent risk assessments and poison their food and water supplies, too.
Claudio Soto, PhD, professor of neurology at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston, and his colleagues recently found human prions in urine (also in feces and other bodily fluids found in sewage). Soto also confirmed that plants uptake prions and are infectious and deadly to those who consume such plants. Therefore, humans, wildlife and livestock are vulnerable to prion disease when foods are grown on land treated with sewage sludge (biosolids) and reclaimed sewage water.
Prion researcher Dr. Joel Pedersen (above), from the University of Wisconsin, found that prions become 680 times more infectious in certain soils. Pedersen also found that sewage treatment does not inactivate prions. Therefore, prions are lethal, mutating, migrating and multiplying everywhere sewage is dumped.
“If prions enter municipal wastewater treatment systems, most of the agent would bond to sewage sludge, survive anaerobic digestion, and be present in treated biosolids,” Pedersen said. “Land application of biosolids containing prions represents a route for their unintentional introduction into the environment. Our results emphasize the importance of keeping prions out of municipal wastewater treatment systems. Prions could end up in sewage treatment plants via slaughterhouses, hospitals, dental offices and mortuaries just to name a few of the pathways. The disposal of sludge represents the greatest risk of spreading prion contamination in the environment. Plus, we know that sewage sludge pathogens, pharmaceutical residue and chemical pollutants are taken up by plants and vegetables.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that prions are in sewage, but it never issued guidance on prion management within wastewater treatment plants. According to the EPA, “Prions are extremely resistant to inactivation by ultraviolet light, irradiation, boiling, dry heat, formaline, freezing, drying and changes in pH. Methods for inactivating prions in infected tissues or wastes include incineration at very high temperatures and alkaline hydrolysis.” As it turns out, even these forms of inactivation are not foolproof and such aggressive measures are not happening at the wastewater treatment plant.
“Since it’s unlikely that the sewage treatment process can effectively stop prions, adopting measures to prevent the entry of prions into the sewer system is advisable,” said the Toronto Department of Health, November 2004.
Unfortunately, the EPA’s risk assessment on sewage sludge and biosolids were prepared before the world of science knew about prions. Finally, in November 2018, the EPA admitted that it could not assess the risks associated with dumping sewage sludge on land. That announcement has not stopped the practice. It’s time to enforce the law.
Thanks to this reckless dumping, deer, elk, moose and reindeer are now contracting prion disease from infectious waste dumped in their habitat. It’s being called chronic wasting disease to help make it sound separate from the global prion pandemic. Sick wildlife are just a symptom of a much bigger problem that is killing humans. Wildlife officials know what is going on, but they are playing dumb for industry. Public health be damned.
Prions are such a formidable threat that the U.S. government enacted the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, which included provisions regarding prions. It classified prions as select agents that pose an extreme risk to food, water and health systems. Unfortunately, the Center For Disease Control quietly took prions off the list about two years ago because the classification threatened to criminalize some multi-billion dollar industries and many industry practices.
As many hospitals have learned the hard way, deadly prions are unstoppable in the sterile confines of an operating room that has been exposed to someone with prion disease. Prions are totally unaccounted for in the high-volume streams at wastewater treatment plants. Wastewater treatment plants have been prion incubators and distributors for decades. Adding to the problem, it’s estimated that 860 billion gallons of sewage escapes sewer systems across the U.S. every year. That’s enough to flood all of Pennsylvania ankle-deep. It’s enough for every American to take one bath each week for an entire year. Many cities in other nations have little if any sewage treatment. We are literally swimming in infectious waste and misinformation.
Wastewater Spreading Infectious Prions
Both the EPA and the Wastewater Effluent Federation claim that there is no way to detect prions in wastewater or to stop them. Actually, we can detect them. We can’t stop them, especially in the confines of a wastewater treatment plant. That means that all effluent and biosolids are infected with prions. Infectious waste. It is not being treated or regulated as such. In fact, we are reclaiming wastewater for drinking water with no way of stopping the prion pathogen. Look at the risk assessments for yourself. It is criminal.
As such, the EPA has never issued guidance on prion management within sewage processing plants. This deliberate lack of directive allows budget-strapped states and counties to regulate the practices in a variety of ways that best suit local industries. Corruption at all levels has shut down all attempts to reform wastewater treatment policies and practices, including the reuse of all discharges.
The problem with prions is that they linger in the environment infinitely because they defy all attempts at sterilization and inactivation. Unlike viruses or bacteria, prions are not alive. Therefore, they can’t be killed. Once unleashed on the environment, prions remain infectious. They migrate, mutate and multiply as they infect crops, water supplies and mammals.
Raising livestock and crops on land contaminated with infectious waste is foolish and a public health time bomb. Dumping it where it can go airborne, leach into water, or contaminate farmland/crops is reckless. Sewage sludge applied to land is contributing to chronic wasting disease in deer, elk, moose, reindeer and other mammals. Sewage sludge is contributing to Alzheimer’s disease, CJD, Parkinson’s, microcephaly, west Nile virus, equine herpes, and much, much more. The infection spreads via many vectors.
There is a pile of research and evidence that demonstrates cross-species transmission of prion disease. Those who peddle this crap (biosolids) should be strung up for bioterrorism and treason. Reclaimed wastewater faces the same issue. Hospitals throw away expensive equipment that has been exposed to deadly prions. How are the brain surgeons in the sewage industry neutralizing them? It isn’t possible–especially in a wastewater treatment plant. As such, everything that leaves these facilities is infectious waste.
It’s time for the regulatory world to keep up with the real world. Brain disease is surging globally and the reckless dumping of infectious waste is driving it. It’s time for the U.S. government to enforce the Bioterrorism Prevention and Response Act of 2002. It’s time for other governments to stop relying on risk assessments peddled by the U.S. EPA that recklessly declared biosolids safe even though it was fully aware of the unstoppable prion threat.
The EPA deliberately overlooked several risks associated with the land application of sewage sludge.
Since that time, the risks have intensified greatly. Sewage sludge is unregulated infectious waste, toxic waste and nuclear waste all rolled into one. The only thing that approximates fertilizer is the BS that the EPA, industry and the shit-heads are spreading deep. Biosolids and sewage sludge should be immediately reclassified as infectious waste and handled accordingly. Thanks to reckless policies, extreme weather now fans the flames. Tornadoes, floods, droughts and rising tides are pushing tons of sewage further into the lives of everyone. It’s a perfect storm.
Keep reading to find out why:
- Alzheimer’s disease is part of a spectrum disease known as prion disease, which also includes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The spectrum also is known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE);
- Alzheimer’s disease is an infectious prion disease, which is often misdiagnosed and undiagnosed. Millions of diagnoses are being suppressed by physicians;
- The bodily fluids of those with prion disease are infectious;
- Wastewater treatment plants are contaminating our food and water supplies by spreading deadly prions via sewage sludge, biosolids and reclaimed wastewater. The risk assessments involving these facilities and their by-products were prepared before prions were discovered and characterized;
- Wildlife, sea mammals, livestock and people are contracting prion disease from mismanaged sewage;
- Caregivers are in harm’s way because of disease mismanagement;
- It’s time to reclassify sewage sludge, biosolids and reclaimed wastewater as infectious waste; and
- It’s time to defend our food, water and air from infectious waste by enforcing the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act Of 2002 and similar laws around the world.
Prion Disease Mismanagement
Despite all of the smoke and mirrors, prion disease is prion disease. Prion disease is incurable and fatal. It’s killing more and more mammals, including humans, every year.
Studies confirm that people and animals dying of prion disease contaminate the environment around them with prions because prions are in the urine, feces, blood, skin, mucus and saliva of each victim. Each victim becomes an incubator and a distributor of the Pandora-like pathogen. Victims are contagious long before they exhibit clinical symptoms.
Misdiagnosis and misinformation regarding prion disease is a matter of life and death. The disease is now striking young people, including teenagers, with much greater frequency. It’s also killing clusters of people in the same communities with greater frequency. The mismanagement doesn’t end here.
The deadly and infectious prions spread through bodily fluids, including blood, mucus, saliva, urine and feces. Mismanagement of contagious pathogens associated with the disease are contributing to the epidemic. Few, if any, mammals are immune. There is no species barrier. Thanks to widespread mismanagement and contamination, prions are spreading to wildlife, livestock and back to humans thanks to misinformation and the mismanagement of infectious waste.
Prion disease causes memory loss, impaired coordination, and abnormal movements. In humans, most diagnoses are a process of elimination. After eliminating all other possibilities, the medical guesswork begins:
- If the patient has a memory disorder, it’s diagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease;
- If they have a movement disorder, it’s diagnosed as Parkinson’s disease;
- If the patient shows both symptoms, doctors flip a coin;
- If the patient ever had a concussion, it’s now ruled as CTE;
- If the person is incapacitated, it’s Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and very transmissible;
- If the victim is in the deer family, it’s chronic wasting disease instead of prion disease;
- If the victim is a beef or dairy cow, it’s called mad cow disease instead of prion disease;
- In other mammals, it’s called different things, but prion disease has been found in dolphins, elephants, mink, cats and many other species. The suggestion of a reliable species barrier against thousands, if not millions of mutations is ludicrous.
It’s not known which patients with brain disease become infectious or when, but both CJD and Alzheimer’s patients are being mismanaged. Informed neurologists won’t touch patients with these symptoms because of the risk of transmission, but they won’t say a word to their patients or family members. They are making diagnoses from across the room. Millions of patients and caregivers are being misinformed, misguided and exposed to an aggressive disease.
Alzheimer’s Disease: Alzheimer’s disease alone is killing 50-100 million people now and spreading fast. Experts suggest that the prevalence of brain disease will quadruple by 2050, if not sooner. Meanwhile, death rates from heart disease and cancer are dropping globally due to advances in nutrition, medicine and disease management.
“There is now real evidence of the potential transmissibility of Alzheimer’s,” says Thomas Wiesniewski M.D. a prion and Alzheimer’s researcher at New York University School of Medicine.
A new study published in the journal Nature renews concern about the transmissibility of Alzheimer’s disease between people. A second study by the same scientist in early 2016 adds to the stack of evidence.
“Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease in humans and will pose a considerable challenge to healthcare systems in the coming years,” Dr. Prusiner said. Aggregation of the β-amyloid (Aβ) peptide within the brain is thought to be an initiating event in AD pathogenesis. Many recent studies in transgenic mice have provided evidence that Aβ aggregates become self-propagating (infectious) during disease, leading to a cascade of protein aggregation in the brain, which may underlie the progressive nature of AD. The ability to self-propagate and the existence of distinct strains reveals that Aβ aggregates exhibit many properties indistinguishable from those of prions composed of PrPSc proteins. The evidence that Aβ can become a prion during disease, Aβ prions may be important for understanding the pathobiology of AD.”
Parkinson’s Disease: As different as they appear, the differences between Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease are slight. The primary difference is which region of the brain is under attack by prion disease. According to Dr. Prusiner, Parkinson’s disease is a prion disease, which means that it is incurable and transmissible.
Autism: Abnormal proteins are now associated with autism. In fact, it appears that the biggest difference between the neurodegenerative disease spectrum and autism spectrum disorders is age. Both spectrums share common environmental causes and pathologies.
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD): CWD was first detected in deer in North America. Then it was detected in a variety of other animals, including an elephant at the Oakland zoo, mink, a dolphin and many other mammals. It’s been found in a variety of animals across the United States and Canada. All hypotheses in the past centered around contaminated feed and reckless deer farmers. Deer also spread the disease via nose-to-nose contact. Those theories were just rocked by the discovery of CWD in Norway in moose and reindeer. The disease didn’t jump the Atlantic from the Americas. However, Norway dumps tons of infectious waste on land every year–infectious waste from people with prion disease.
Now, CWD is ravaging wildlife in many regions across North America. It’s now in reindeer in Scandinavia. Suffice it to say, sick deer didn’t jump the Atlantic Ocean to Norway and Finland. Sick wildlife is a canary in the proverbial coal mine and we should heed the warning signs. CWD is part of a larger epidemic of neurological disease that is killing people, wildlife and livestock around the world.
Sewage sludge dumped on land is the common denominator and Norway’s sewage is very infectious. The country has one of the highest rates of Alzheimer’s disease in the world. Prion disease has even been found in dolphins and it’s likely what is causing the massive die-offs and beaching of whales. It’s because of groundwater runoff from infected fields and forests. Wastewater reclamation is adding to the nightmare. These sick animals are canaries in the proverbial coal mine. If sewage is infecting wildlife, it’s happening to the livestock that produce our meat and dairy products. They just aren’t living long enough to exhibit the clinical symptoms and testing for mad cow disease, for example, isn’t happening in a meaningful manner. The same prion contamination is exposing every person on the planet to deadly neurological disease and other ailments. Our food and water supplies are being contaminated with infectious and toxic sewage.
The warning signals are being ignored. Although there are several ways for CWD to take hold and spread, the biggest prion pathway in the world is being ignored–sewage and its derivatives, including biosolids and reclaimed wastewater. Putting these Pandora-like pathogens back in the box is impossible. Injecting them into the lifecycle is reckless and a form of bioterrorism.
Although there are multiple causes of prion disease, including CWD, reckless policies are contributing to an environmental nightmare. Sick deer, elk, moose and other wildlife and marine life are just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Alzheimer’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are both highly transmissible. Prions shed from humans are the most aggressive mutations and the most difficult to neutralize. That’s because prions mutate as they move up the food chain and humans, of course, are at the top of the food chain. As such, the sewage from these victims is highly infectious. Thanks to sewage mismanagement, prion diseases have been spreading to wildlife through the bodily fluids of humans who have the disease. CWD is now a pandemic and the government routinely hires sharpshooters to get rid of the evidence.
Claiming that there is no known risk associated with handling or consuming wildlife with CWD is laughable. Claiming that game processing facilities aren’t spreading the disease from infected carcasses to healthy ones is a joke. Just look at the guidance issued regarding mad cow disease. Just look at the guidance issued to people with the most severe form of the disease–Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
The bodies of prion victims, regardless of species, are highly toxic and contagious. Hunting knives and saws used on sick wildlife are infected forever. Processing plants that cut and grind wildlife carcasses for hunters (before CWD tests are complete) are contaminated forever. Every animal processed after an infected carcass will become infected. It’s insane to think that game processing plants are prion-free. Regulations in this arena are criminal. Thousands, possibly millions, of innocent people have been exposed to the prions from someone else’s sick deer. That’s because many are processed before testing or no testing is done at all. Pickups and trailers that transport infected animals are hopelessly contaminated. The prion pathways created by one hunting trip can explode exponentially within hours.
Chronic wasting disease is now rampant in Canada and it recently jumped the Atlantic to Norway’s reindeer herd. It’s spreading across the U.S. like wildfire as we spread more pathogens and lies. Land application sites often involve locations where poverty is high and economic prosperity is low, which means resistance is low. Sludge tends to be dumped where minorities live, leading to allegations of environmental racism. Unfortunately, contaminated food and water make it back to the cities where the infectious waste originated.
Mad Cow Disease: Livestock are vulnerable to prion disease, too. Raising beef and dairy cattle on land infected with prions is reckless. It’s just a matter of time until mad cow disease rears its ugly head again–it’s here to stay because prions are migrating and incubating in the soil–and then the water. A deadly prion is a deadly prion. There is no species barrier.
If prion disease is killing wildlife, livestock are not immune. Beef and dairy cattle are consuming the same infected crops and drinking the same infected water supplies. Since humans are at the top of the food chain, and since we are often downstream from these infected farms, ranches and forests, our food and water supplies are being compromised. The cycle goes on and on and prions migrate, mutate and multiply in the process.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: In humans, the prion spectrum includes Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and an extremely aggressive version known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The difference between these diseases is very slight and often indistinguishable to neurologists. For example, millions of people have the severe form of Alzheimer’s disease, which is known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
“Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease behaves like Alzheimer’s disease on steroids,” said Dr. Jennifer Majersik, an associate professor of neurology at the University of Utah.
According to neuroscientists Dr. Laura Manuelidis, at least 25 percent of Alzheimer’s diagnoses are actually CJD, which is further up the prion spectrum. CJD, without dispute, is extremely infectious to caregivers and loved ones, but it has not been declared a reportable disease across the U.S. and many other nations.
Millions of cases of deadly CJD are being misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease. Millions of patients and caregivers are being misinformed, misguided and exposed to an aggressive prion disease. Millions of people with prion disease have exposed us all to their infectious waste thanks to misinformation, mismanagement and negligence.
Misinformed caregivers, family members, healthcare workers and others are caught in the crossfire of a deadly form of protein. In fact, few family members are warned about the infectious nature of CJD. Meanwhile, hospitals throw out surgical instruments used on such patients. Neurologists prefer not to touch or even be in the same room as a patient with CJD. The CJD Foundation and other advocacy organizations also remain mum on the risk of transmission. The CDC remains silent. Is this cone of silence at all levels incompetence, negligence or criminal misconduct?
CJD victims should be quarantined because prions are in the skin, urine, feces, blood, saliva, mucus, skin and cell tissue of all victims–all human byproducts that are washed, dumped, or flushed down sinks and toilets. Alzheimer’s patients also should be handled with care.
One can assume that the waste is extra infectious when it comes from funeral homes, nursing homes, hospitals, dental offices, veterinarians, slaughterhouses and some laboratories.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE): CTE is likely a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy—prion disease. In most of these cases, head trauma caused prions in the brain to misfold and become toxic. Once the neurodegeneration of CTE begins, are these victims shedding infectious prions? Hopefully, prion researchers will fill in this very important blank. Again, families and caregivers need to know if they are dealing with a TSE.
Although there are many causes and pathways contributing to the prion disease epidemic, many pathways are being mismanaged around the globe. Prions spread uncontrollably and contaminate everything that they touch—much like radiation. Unlike radiation, however, prions do not deplete themselves. They migrate, mutate, multiply and kill with unparalleled efficiency. Each victim becomes an incubator and a distributor of the Pandora-like pathogen. The sewage sludge and wastewater released are spreading brain disease far and wide.
People with Alzheimer’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have infected every sewage system in the world. Wastewater treatment plants are collecting points for prions from infected humans. The sewage treatment process can’t stop them, but they can serve as prion incubators and distributors. Biosolids, water reuse and sludge disposal have made them potent prion distributors. The risk assessments involving these facilities and their byproducts were prepared before prions were discovered and characterized.
Prions mutate as they move up the food chain. Strains generated by humans are extremely aggressive, since we sit at the top of the food chain. The human prion is resistant to both heat and chemicals. It’s reported that prions released from people are up to a hundred thousand times more difficult to deactivate than prions from most animals. Since more and more people are dying from TSEs each year, sewage systems are more contaminated with deadly prions than ever. Wastewater treatment systems are now prion incubators and distributors.
Wastewater treatment systems are now prion incubators and distributors. The problem is getting worse every day. As such, it’s time to reclassify sewage sludge, biosolids and reclaimed wastewater as infectious waste to defend our food, water and air from infectious waste. It’s time to enforce the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act Of 2002 and similar laws around the world. Sick deer, elk, moose and reindeer are just the tip of a very deadly iceberg.
Thanks to outdated risk assessments, sewage, biosolids, reclaimed sewage water and feedlot waste is recycling the prion pathogen that causes neurological disease right back into our watersheds, which we share with deer, elk, moose, livestock and other creatures that are vulnerable to prion disease. Rain, wind and irrigation spread deadly prions further everyday. Healthy wildlife are being exposed to deadly prions and other toxins through food, water, air and contact with infected animals.
Thanks to sewage mismanagement, prion diseases are killing humans, wildlife and livestock around the world today. As more and more people are contracting TSEs, sewage systems are more contaminated with prions than ever. Infectious waste is becoming more infectious every day.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has confirmed that prions are in sewage, but it never issued guidance on prion management within wastewater treatment plants. Unfortunately, the EPA’s risk assessment on sewage sludge and biosolids were prepared before the world of science knew about prions. The agency continues to cling to its antiquated sludge rule crafted back in the dark ages. It does, however, consider prions a “emerging contaminant of concern.” Meanwhile, its outdated risk assessments are promoting a public health disaster.
“Since it’s unlikely that the sewage treatment process can effectively neutralize prions, adopting measures to prevent the entry of prions into the sewer system is advisable,” said the Toronto Department of Health, November 2004.
Exposing crops and livestock to prions is a very bad idea. Plants absorb prions from the soil along with water and nutrient uptake, which makes the prions bioavailable and infectious to humans, wildlife and livestock via the food chain.
The prion problem is getting worse with rising populations, rising concentrations of people, intensive agriculture, reckless sewage disposal policies and other mismanaged pathways. As the epidemic strikes more people, the pathways for prion exposure explode and intensify. Reckless sewage disposal policies and practices alone are putting billions of innocent people in the crossfire right now. Entire watersheds are endangered thanks to a deadly pathogen that migrates, mutates and multiplies.
If it’s impossible to stop prions in an operating room, it’s impossible to stop them in the challenging environment of a high-volume, low-tech wastewater treatment facility. It’s ludicrous to think that treated sewage water or biosolids are prion-free. Especially since prions from people are much more infectious than those found in other species (prions become more aggressive as they work their way up the food chain). The TSE epidemic represents an environmental nightmare that threatens every mammal on Earth.
When the U.S. government enacted the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, it included a provision to halt research on prions in all but two laboratories. It classified prions as select agents that pose an extreme risk to food, water and more. It was a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, industry pressure convinced the Center For Disease Control to quietly take prions off the list of special agents two years ago. Keeping prions listed threatened to outlaw several multi-billion dollar industries. This reversal kept the floodgates open to the prion threat, especially regarding sewage, agriculture and water reclamation industries. These reckless policies also are contributing to the simultaneous surge in autism across the United States.
Despite all of the warning signs, government and industry are studying these issues to death. The infection is real. The body count is real. The denial is disturbing. It’s time to stop the land application of sewage sludge (LASS) in all nations. Safer alternatives exist.
If you consider yourself a homeland defender and a defender of public health, then demand that the Department of Homeland Security enforce the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002. This law is supposed to protect our air, food and water from all deadly threats—domestic and foreign. It isn’t being enforced and it’s fueling a public health disaster, including the surge in Alzheimer’s disease, autism and chronic wasting disease.
If you consider yourself a homeland defender, demand that the EPA update its risk assessments on the land application of sewage sludge, also known as biosolids. Thanks to outdated risk assessments, reckless policies and practices 700 million tons of infectious waste are being dumped into our food and water supplies every year (just in the U.S.). It’s time to outlaw this foolish practice. Outdated risk assessments are reason enough. A global prion pandemic is another reason.