What is Mad Cow Disesase?

Answer 1

Mad Cow Disease is more properly referred to as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) which is a degeneration of the central nervous system tissue in the brain and spinal cord in mature cattle. BSE is primarily caused by altered proteins or prions which are mostly found in feed tainted with minute microscopic amounts of prions, either from an animal that was rendered that unknowingly had BSE or from a vector that exposed some of the feed to prions. Prions are very difficult and pretty much impossible to detect in a bag of feed, so even the smallest amount of prions in a feed bag go unnoticed even by a federal inspector. Prions can also be transferred through chicken feces or chicken feed that could be mistakenly given to cattle, exposing them to BSE-infected animal byproduct in the feed.

BSE is related to scrapie in sheep (where it probably originated due to rendered meat and bone meal in sheep being used as a protein supplement for cattle in Europe), Creutzfeldt-Jakobs disease in humans, and Chronic Wasting Disease in deer and elk. In general, BSE is also called TSE or Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy.

The first cases of BSE were discovered in Great Britain in the 1970s and '80s but were soon unheard of until a lone case of BSE cropped up in Alberta in 2003. That cow that came down with BSE was originally from the United States. Other cows that were discovered in Canada were also traced to the U.S. Legislation had come about to ban animal byproducts in feed fed to ruminant animals, including sheep, deer, elk, cattle, bison, camelids and goats. Also, a system was prepared to trace the birth, movements, health records, birth records, etc. of every animal born in Canada. The United States is slow to follow suite because of the immense opposition to have such a system in place, even though BSE cases still crop up in and around the United States. Neither Canada nor the United States are BSE free because it is impossible to trace prions, since prions can last for a long time before entering an animal and causing trouble. However proper diagnosis and disposal of animals with BSE or TSE (CWD, Scrapie) is strongly recommended to decrease the cases of BSE, TSE, CWD and CJD occuring.