Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

A cow unable to stand due to BSE.

The United States Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service's glossary says "Commonly known as “mad cow disease,” BSE is a slowly progressive, incurable disease affecting the central nervous system of cattle, first diagnosed in the United Kingdom in 1986. BSE belongs to a family of diseases known as the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Consumption by cattle of animal feed containing TSE-contaminated ruminant protein has been cited as one possible means of transmission. Scientific evidence supports a causal relationship between BSE outbreaks in Europe and more than 120 recent European cases of a human TSE, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). TSE animal diseases are found in the United States, including scrapie in sheep and goats and chronic wasting disease in deer and elk. Since 1989, USDA has prohibited the importation of live ruminants from countries where BSE is known to exist in native cattle. In 1997, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prohibited the use of most mammalian protein in ruminant feeds."^[1]

References[edit]

USDA Index