[Digestion] Botulism

[Paul Harris]

G'day All,

I am taking the liberty of forwarding the e-mail below for your
information as I don't know how widely it has circulated - apologies for
doubling up if you have already seen it.

I will be away until Monday week running a biogas course in Cameroon, so
may not be able to reply.

Happy Digesting,
HOOROO

Subject: 
        biogas production
   Date: 
        Mon, 18 Sep 2006 13:23:21 +0200
   From: 
        Helge Böhnel <hboehne at gwdg.de>
     To: 
        paul.harris at adelaide.edu.au




Dear Colleague,

when browsing the internet I found your page on biogas. May I draw your
attention on a problem which we are facing here in Germany.

Our institute has been working in the field of botulism diagnosis. We
experience a sharp increase of clinical cases especially in
cattle and pigs. These animals are excreting bacterial forms with their
faeces, and they harbour these pathogens in their guts. When
faeces or gut contents from healthy slaughtered animals are used for
biogas production it could happen that the digestate may
contain these pathogens. We had some cases recently where complete farm
shad to give up due to botulism. (We find acute and
chronic cases, which we named “visceral botulism”). More than 1000 farms
are affected, not including those in Austria, Switzerland,
Holland and Belgium, from where we got positive samples as well.

As about 50 % of the samples are negative there must be a hidden or
unknown secret in the production process. Unfortunately we
do not get funds to look into details, as the biogas interests are
considered more important than life of farm animals and consumers.

 

Of course, I would give more details if necessary.

With best regards

Helge Boehnel
-- 
Mr. Paul Harris
Faculty of Sciences, DP710
The  University of Adelaide, Roseworthy Campus, AUSTRALIA 5371
Ph    : +61 8 8303 7880
Fax   : +61 8 8303 7979
mailto:paul.harris at adelaide.edu.au
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