A few other TSE cluster hotspots had demonstrated the same low copper connection, but had measured abnormally high levels of other potentially toxic transition metals, such as silver, platinum, lithium, as well as manganese. These metals can also readily substitute at copper bonds on prion proteins.

Some of these TSE cluster zones were located in silver mining areas, where local ecosystems were naturally high in silver, whilst other clusters were centred around ski resorts, reservoirs, airport flight paths, coastal districts, etc, where extensive aerial spraying of weather modifying silver iodide ‘cloud seeding’ chemicals had been used for inducing rainfall/snowfall and cloud/fog dispersion.

Metals like silver and platinum are also used as key ingredients in dental amalgam fillings, surgical depth electrodes/instruments, etc; perhaps explaining why dental treatment or surgical operations/electrode implantation are considered to be high risk prerequisites for triggering off CJD.

The recent surge in the global incidence rates of TSEs, and other neuro-degenerative diseases, seem to have run in tandem with the increased incorporation of high concentration manganese oxide additives into the bovine, human, pet and zoo animal food chains. This has resulted from the introduction of a multitude of applications involving free access mineral licks, supplement tablets, fertiliser and fungicide sprays, paints, petrol additives, etc. Or via increased consumption of trendy food products, such as soya, where the beans naturally bio-accumulate high levels of metals like manganese and aluminium from the soil.

Given the fact that long term manganese exposure is well known to induce a wide array of progressive neuro-psychiatric degenerative disorders in factory welders and mine workers - dubbed as the ‘manganese madness’ syndrome - the idea that manganese could perform a front line role in the pathogenesis of TSEs is not out the way.

In fact, manganese toxicity can manifest itself in many forms of neuro-degeneration. When I visited areas in the South Pacific, like the isle of Guam, where a raft of neuro-degenerative conditions involving Alzheimers, Parkinson’s and Motor Neurone disease had run at a fifty fold higher incidence rate than the global average, I noticed that manganese mining used to be intensively carried out in all of these areas. After the mining ceased, the incidence rates of these diseases diminished accordingly.

Next, I visited Groote Eylandt, a once upon a time enchanted tropical island off the NE Australian coastline whose history has witnessed a bizarre degree of ‘heaven and hells’. 

Not only do the island’s soils play host to the mother of all manganese concentrations, but its flamboyant rainforest ecosystems have supported ideal hunter-gatherer grounds for some of the most pure bred, nomadic Aboriginal clans alive in Australia today. 

But, as I was soon to learn, the tropical charms of a Groote Eylandt of ‘pick-your-own’ coconuts and turquoise seas can be deceptive to the uninformed outsider.

I found that 3% of an indigenous Aboriginal clan residing around one of the largest open cast manganese mines in the world had recently been struck down by a bizarre Friedrich’s ataxia-like syndrome that appeared to be caused by a high manganese/low magnesium induced mutation in early life. Previously fit and healthy Aboriginees had found themselves rapidly transfigured into wasted, neuro-degenerative wrecks. Their movements were more akin to a debilitated stick insect trying to cross ice, than a broad faced Aboriginal bush person out stalking a wallaby.

Furthermore, the levels of unrestrained aggression/murder in this community had reached crisis proportions, where the rates of imprisonment are 20 fold higher than in any other Aboriginal community. Grotesque ‘Hieronymous Bosch-style’ brawls erupt on a weekly basis.

Interestingly, the link between manganese and aggression has been well established in many other parts of the world as well. For instance, manganese was recorded at elevated levels in the bodies of those who have been executed on death row for violent crimes. The scientist who carried out these studies, Professor Louis Gottschalk, reckons that ‘manganese levels serve as a marker for violence’.

But, true to form, the official cause of this "drunken walking" syndrome has been conveniently scape-goated onto a mutation caused by faulty Aboriginal ‘seed’. But those who had propounded this genetic-only causal hypothesis (funded by the mining corporation!) had excluded many important epidemiological perspectives; turning a blind eye to the fact that a handful of the white mineworkers on Groote were also beginning to show the early symptoms of Groote syndrome. One had already died of an ‘undefined’ neuro-degenerative wasting condition.

To challenge the genetic dogma on the origins of this disease, I travelled several thousand miles to another isolated area where a cluster of this same ataxic condition exists amongst indigenous folk living on the islands of Flores and Sao Miguel in the Azores Archipelago. After drawing a range of environmental samples, I unearthed the same abnormal mineral ratio which I had found back on Groote Eylandt. In fact, the levels of manganese were so high in the black volcanic terrain of these islands, that the mining prospectors have considered it lucrative to mine the metal from the local sea beds.

Given the high intensity of various neuro-degenerative diseases that have erupted around these manganese hotspot regions, I wondered whether the vastly increased exportation of manganese dioxide ores from these areas (into the steel, glass, dye, lead free fuel, paint, mineral feed supplement industries), across the developed world, had somehow seeded the ‘madcow’ madness in the deer, sheep, cats, zoo animals, cows and young teenagers?