Mad Cow

aka Mad Cow Disease BSE Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy

It is believed by most scientists that the disease may be transmitted to human beings who eat the brain or spinal cord of infected carcasses. In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD), and by October 2009, it had killed 165 people in Britain, and 44 elsewhere with the number expected to rise because of the disease's long incubation period. A British inquiry into BSE concluded that the epidemic was caused by cattle, who are normally herbivores, being fed the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal (MBM), which caused the infectious agent to spread.