User talk:Haidagirl

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), also known as Mad Cow Disease, is caused by unconventional pathogens called prions - literally infectious proteins which have a unique structure and can survive incineration in temperatures hot enough to melt lead. Cows were thought to have first caught BSE by eating sheep infected with a sheep spongiform encephalopathy called scrapie.

Prions can cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a human spongiform encephalopathy; its clinical picture involves weekly deterioration into blindness and epilepsy. The British Secretary of Health called CJD "the worst form of death imaginable."

CJD has been known about for decades, and was dubbed 'sporadic' because of its tendency to sometimes arise in families, and other times jump up in one out of a million people; the new form caused by eating beef from cows infected with BSE seems to be different from the classic sporadic CJD.

"Bovine means 'cow or cattle,' spongiform means 'sponge-like,' and encephalopathy means 'brain d disease.'" -- Michael Greger, M.D for the Organic Consumers Association

BSE tends to strike younger people, often goes on for a year, and produces more psychotic symptoms. BSE apparently originated in Britain, and apart from the one case (24 year old Charlene), it does not appear to have spread to the U.S at all. Hundreds of confirmed cases of CJD arise in the U.S, but the beef industry is quick to point out that they are caused by the sporadic form of CJD, not the new variant caused by Mad Cow Disease. However, new research showed that not hundreds, but thousands of people die of sporadic CJD in the U.S, and some of these may actually be the new form of BSE. Bovine means "cow or cattle," spongiform means "sponge-like," and encephalopathy means "brain disease."