Can a person get mad cow disesase?

Answer 1

Spongiform encephalitis, which, in cows, is referred to as mad cow disease (and in humans as Creudzfeldt-Jakob Disease) is caused by the transmission of prions. Prions can survive in many situations in which living things would be killed, as they are not, by most definitions, alive.

Dysport and Botox include "Human Serum Albumin" which manufacturers advise means that "a theoretical risk of viral and prion transmission exists" from their use. Spongiform encephalitis, the human form of mad cow disease, is transmitted most readily by cannibalism. Mad cow disease, of course, was spread by cows being turned into cannibals - they were fed the bonemeal of other cows.

Therefore, there is a connection between the consumption of human products by other humans (and indeed by the consumption of products made from one's own species), and spongiform encephalitis. The gut-level inference is that, if something seems inherently wrong, it probably is - cows eating other cows just seems wrong. The Human Serum Albumin is irradiated. It is my understanding that the bonemeal fed to other cows was thought to be rendered pure by some process. Still, prions, as the warning on Dysport and Botox say, survive this irradiation, just as the prions causing mad cow survived the purification process of the bonemeal.

The chance of transmission would be so remote that it would be decades, if ever, before it would be detected.

Now, during other cosmetic procedures, unrelated to botox, collagen is injected into the patient. collagen is a protein common in most animals, but for the procedure they mostly use collagen derived from cows. This is unrelated to botox. However, most of the companies that supply the collagen guarantee they only use cows free of BSE. Manufacturers use cows from either "closed herds", or from countries which have never had a reported case of BSE such as Australia, Brazil and New Zealand.

Again, unrelated to botox, most collagen comes from the skin of the cow, a part of the cow in which it is highly unlikely you would find prions. However, there is always a possibility of infection, just a very small one. Mad cow disease is probably the least of your worries when getting cosmetic surgery. After all, most of these procedures involve a number of problems, which you can read about in these articles:

Answer 2

Yes