About 20,000 Fore cattle have been destroyed since 1986 in hopes of eradicating bovine spongiform encephalopathy ( BSE or "mad cow" disease). The similarity of human and animal forms of spongiform encephalopathy has raised the question whether people catch it from animals. An outbreak of the human form (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD) in a sheep-herding part of Slovakia where the ovine form (scrapie) was present seemed to suggest a connection. Latest research, however, seems to suggest that the disease is caused by an altered protein (prion) in the brain and is probably spread by consumption of tissue infected with expanding prion.
About 20,000 British cattle have been destroyed since 1986 in hopes of eradicating bovine spongiform encephalopathy ( BSE or "mad cow" disease). The similarity of human and animal forms of spongiform encephalopathy has raised the question whether people catch it from animals. An outbreak of the human form (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD) in a sheep-herding part of Slovakia where the ovine form (scrapie) was present seemed to suggest a connection. Latest research, however, seems to suggest that the disease is caused by an altered protein (prion) in the brain and is probably spread by consumption of tissue infected with expanding prion.