How is mad cow disease spread from one animal to another?

Answer 1

people get it by eating infected meat from the cows who had it. other people get it from cannibalism, infected surgical instruments, blood donations, organ transplants, and a bunch more stuff that i don't remember.

Answer 2

Researchers believe that the infectious agent that causes mad cow disease is an abnormal version of a protein normally found on cell surfaces, called a prion. For reasons still unknown, this protein becomes altered and destroys nervous system tissue -- the brain and spinal cord.

Answer 3

MCD is transferred if you eat beef that is contaminated with prions from a cow that has BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy). For cows, it is spread by eating feed that contains contaminated animal by-product.

Answer 4

Mad Cow disease is NOT a virus or any pathogen that is easily spread from animal to animal. BSE is spread only by the cattle consuming feed that is contaminated with prions that came from vector that was contaminated from contact with a piece of an animal with BSE, or from animal protein by-product in the feed that contains traces of BSE prions. Thus, Mad Cow disease cannot be spread by contact, air, or bacteria in the soil, but only from consuming BSE-infected feedstuffs, which many only affect one animal, but will not affect the others, or, in worst case scenarios, if the whole herd ate that feed, then they are all affected.

Answer 5

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, the scientific name for mad cow disease) is caused by a prion (misfolded protein). In humans, the disease is called variant Creutzfeld-Jacob's disease (vCJD). Neither of these diseases are contagious from person to person - each person would have to consume contaminated beef products to contract the disease.

Answer 6

Infectious BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the scientific name for mad cow disease) was spread by consumption of the infectious prion. Prior to the discovery of BSE, it was common practice for dead cow carcasses to be rendered (cooked at a high temperature under pressure to break down otherwise inaccessible nutrients) and then the resulting protein meal to be fed back to cows. However, the infectious prion responsible for causing BSE was not destroyed during rendering, thus allowing the prion to be transmitted from cow to cow.

Since this time, all countries have banned the use of ruminant-derived rendered protein in ruminant feeds.