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Mad Cow disease has entered the U.S. food chain via a single “downer” dairy cow in Washington State. What can consumers do to protect themselves?
What is “mad cow disease?”

Mad Cow disease is one of a family of diseases that strike cattle, deer, sheep and people. (In cattle the disease is called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE; in deer and elk, chronic wasting disease; in sheep, scrapie; and in people, kuru and Crutzfeld-Jacob.)

These diseases are caused by prions (proteins) that mutate and concentrate in the brain and central nervous system. The diseases are contracted through the spontaneous mutation of prions, or by the mutation of prions in response to forces in the environment, such as exposure to BSE-tainted meat. These brain-eating diseases are always fatal.

Mad cow disease has been shown to be transmissible to people via the consumption of infected meat. The disease in people is called variant Crutzfeld-Jacob, as opposed to the regular form of Crutzfeld-Jacob, which is contracted through the apparent spontaneous mutation of prions.
What are the odds of contracting “mad cow” disease?

Very little is known about how variant Crutzfeld-Jacob is contracted from eating BSE-tainted beef, and thus the odds for contracting the disease are unknowable at this time. However, we can look to the world’s epicenter of BSE, Great Britain, for guidance.

Over 100,000 cattle tested positive for BSE in Great Britain, and tens of millions of people were exposed to the disease through the consumption of tainted meat. Despite this tremendous exposure, only 143 cases of variant Crutzfeld-Jacob have been reported to date. In the United States, only 1 dairy cow has tested positive for BSE.

What can consumers do to protect against “mad cow” disease?

1. Ask the government to:

End the feeding of animals to the mammals people eat, including the feeding of cattle blood products to calves.
Expand the testing of cattle for BSE.
Require the reporting of Crutzfeld-Jacob cases to the CDC.

2. Choose organic or grass-fed beef.

3. Choose meat from cattle that are three years old or less.

4. Avoid meat from brains or the central nervous system. Brains are thought to be 3 million times more infectious than muscle, so be aware of what is in your hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages.

Olson’s Law of the Universe:
The farther away we are from the source of our food, the less control we have over what is in that food!