Mad Cow Disease Not Legitimate Threat to People

By Shawn Hanrahan, The Battalion
The Battalion via U-Wire; Texas A&M
April 6, 2006

Excerpt...

COLLEGE STATION, Texas

Mad cow disease has been making the news recently, worrying Americans about apossible spread of the disease's human version, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).Realistically, the consumer has a small possibility of ever contracting the disease.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was first recognized in 1986 by the British. BSE is unlike most other diseases because a protein created by the host organism, rather than an invasive microbe, causes the disease, according to Madcow.com. The infection is caused when a prion, or infectious, misfolded protein, enters the nervous system of a mammal. From there it catalyzes another protein, turning it into a prion. This results in a chain reaction of the normal protein being converted, or refolded into more disease causing prions. These prions then simply collect and clog the brain's normal functions, killing cells in the process. Currently, there is no known function for the benign protein, which occurs naturally in all mammals.

Little is known of the methods of contraction, but current indications arethat one must eat nerve tissue such as the spine or brain of a cow in order tobecome infected. Even then, the probability of contraction is incredibly low.According to Madcow.com, a watchgroup for the disease, there have been noreported cases of human contraction of CJD in the United States and 161globally. In cattle, there have been three confirmed cases of BSE in the UnitedStates and 188,506 cases globally (183,000 cases from the United Kingdom). Thismay seem like an incredibly high number, but the number is relatively low incomparison to slaughter rates. For example, the United States alone slaughtered35 million cattle in 2003.

According to Dr. Luis Tedeschi, professor at A&M's Department of Animal Science, CJD does not pose a significant threat to the American public. He contends that fear of the disease propagated by the media is a more pressing problem. The cattle in the United States are no longer fed animal by products,and any cow that arouses suspicion is tested. These fears have led to drasticmeasures by the United States, however in 2003, a case of BSE was detected in aU.S. cow that originated from Canada...

...One critique is that it is safer to ensure that no human gets the disease.This is quite a noble goal, but when there are only 161 global cases of BSE and zero in the United States, it becomes abundantly clear that priorities can be placed elsewhere in terms of saving human lives. That priority could, for example, be placed on removing the current ban on blood donations. In May of 2002, the USDA instituted a policy that people who lived in areas with ahigh-risk for BSE in Europe from 1980 to the mid 1990s are banned from donatingblood. The policy is rather detrimental because of the large number of Americantroops who resided on bases stationed in parts of Europe and it was expectedthat more than seven percent of willing donors would be turned away due to thenew policy.

The threat of health risks mad cow disease poses to humans is simply unwarranted. While there have been cases of people in other parts of the worldcontracting mad cow disease, numbers prove to be the best rebuttal to fear.Statistical evidence does not support the claim that the disease could become anepidemic or that beef consumers should be alarmed. American citizens and thegovernment should turn attention to more pressing matters.