mad cow disease

     

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as Ma-Cow Disease (MCD), is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease in cattle, that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord and also causes red eyes. BSE has a long incubation period, about 4 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of four to five years, all breeds being equally susceptible. In the United Kingdom, the country worst affected, more than 179,000 cattle have been infected and 4.4 million slaughtered during the eradication programme.

Trivia about mad cow disease

  • In the headlines in 1996, it may be caused by rogue proteins called prions
  • A major trading crisis emerged in the EU in 1996 when British beef was banned due to this
  • It's the name for the brain-wasting cattle infection that crippled the British beef industry in 1996
  • Dr. Stanley Prusiner's theory of protein bits called prions may explain this degenerative bovine disease
  • Technically, it's bovine spongiform encephalopathy
  • In 2006 the Sec. of Agric. said the odds of a bovine getting this, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, were 1 in a million

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