What is BSE or CJD?

Answer 1

BSE or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is a degenerative disease of the central nervous system in cattle. It is also commonly called Mad Cow Disease for the reason that cows, after finally showing symptoms of having the disorder after the prions that the cow injested have incubated for 2 to 8 years, act abnormally aggressive and very nervous when responding to various "normal" stimuli, hence the word "mad." Cows that get to this stage are too far gone to be saved, as there is no remedy nor treatment if an animal does contract BSE. And it can happen to not just cows, but bulls too.

The common misconception when seeing the word "infected with" in context with a cow having BSE, is that many people think that it is a virus or bacteria or any other pathogen that causes infection in the body. But this is exactly a misconception. BSE is caused by prions or misfolded proteins that have either been injested by eating animal by-products of ruminal remains of other dead cows that have been infected with BSE, by feed contaminated by some sort of indirect exposure to prions even though it contains no animal by-product, or genetics. Prions occur when the genetic code for producing normal protein structures (and there are many different types of proteins if you've taken any University Genetics courses) is mutated or misread, resulting in misfolding or abnormal development of proteins responsible for everything from bodily function to hair colour.

Prions, when injested by the cow, travel through lymph nodes, the blood stream, or any other source of transportation in the body that lands it either in the brain or spinal column, or even in bone marrow, the eye, or even lymph glands. Once it has settled in its "destination" it takes several years for it to incubate enough to cause any reaction by the body. BSE is a silent and stealthy killer, for unlike other pathogens like viruses, bacteria, foreign bodies and fungi, it can pass through the body's most advance defenses without even being detected as a bad thing even once. When viral or bacterial infections strike, they strike within a matter of days upon entery into the body, and the reaction you see in your body and other animal's bodies when they're sick, like runny nose, coughing, sneezing, or general lethargicity, (as in an open wound, swelling and pus) is the body's immune system fighting against the replication and harm of these bacteria, viruses, fungi or foreign bodies. Prions do not generate this kind of attention, and they don't need to. That's why they're so effective, and so VERY hard to trace. The incubation period makes it doubly difficult to trace as well.

Answer 2

BSE-Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. Mad cow disease CJD-Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Human version of mad cow disease