Mad Cow Disease Is A Chronic, Degenerative Disorder Affecting The Central Nervous System Of Cattle

Mad cow disease is an incurable, fatal brain disease that affects cattle and possibly some other animals, such as goats and sheep. The medical name for mad cow disease is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (pronounced: bo-vine spun-jih-form en-seh-fah-la-puh-thee), or BSE for short. It's called mad cow disease because it affects a cow's nervous system, causing a cow to act strangely and lose control of its ability to do normal things, such as walk.

Only certain animals can get BSE and human beings do not actually get mad cow disease. However, experts have found an association between BSE and a rare brain condition that affects people, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). Researchers believe that people who eat beef from cows that have BSE are at risk of developing a form of CJD.

CJD is caused by an irregular type of protein in the brain called a prion. When people have CJD, cells in the brain die until the brain ultimately has a "sponge-like" appearance. During this time, people with the disease slowly lose control of their mental and physical capabilities.

To date, very few people have been diagnosed with the form of CJD that's been connected to mad cow disease. By November 2006, only 200 cases of this rare condition had been reported worldwide. Of these, most were recognized in Britain. Several of the people diagnosed with the disease outside Britain, including two cases in the United States had a history of exposure in Britain or in a country where government officials reported BSE. Experts consider that the people got CJD after eating beef products from cows that had BSE.

Because the form of CJD that's been associated to mad cow disease is comparatively new and very rare, experts are still learning about it. However, researchers believe that the disease is not infectious among people. In other words, we cannot get CJD from someone else who has it. At present, it appears that the main way people get the disease is from eating contaminated meat.

Experts do not yet know exactly how long the incubation period is for CJD (in other words, how long it takes from the time a person contracts it to the time that symptoms first appear). However, they do consider that it takes years, if not decades, from the time someone is exposed to the disease until the first signs appear. After the first signs appear, the brain can deteriorate within a year.

The type of protein that causes mad cow disease cannot be detached or destroyed when beef is processed or cooked. For this reason, the U.S. government has recognized several meat processing procedures to protect the public. One of these steps involves removing the parts of the cow that are at highest risk of containing BSE-causing proteins the brain and spinal cord to decrease the chances of them contaminating the meat people eat.

In October 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) projected additional safeguards to help protect consumers from BSE. These prohibit the use of any high-risk cattle materials in the feed of any animal. In this way, the FDA continues to decrease the already tiny possibility of infection with BSE.

• Felicia Byrnes
• 04/05/2009, 12:59 PM
• 0 Comments