'Mad cow disease' harms locals: CF

The Consumers Foundation argued yesterday that the government would “sell out local people's health or put their health at risk” if it opens the domestic market to U.S. beef imports.

“Mad cow disease” is the commonly known name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a transmissible, neuro-degenerative fatal brain disease of cattle. The disease has a long incubation period of 4-5 years, and it is fatal for cattle within weeks to months from its onset. BSE is also a TSE (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy), affecting a number of species (cattle, human, cats, some other types of animals).

TSEs are a family of diseases of humans and animals characterized by spongy degeneration of the brain with severe and fatal neurological signs and symptoms.

While several human TSEs exist, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is the prototype human TSE. CJD occurs in a form associated with a hereditary predisposition (approximately 5-10% of all cases) and in a more common, sporadic form that accounts for 85-90% of cases.

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