Mad Cow Disease

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Mad Cow Disease Mad Cow Disease is one of the most lethal and shocking illnesses in the world today. In cattle it is Scientifically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It is basically a disease of the brain of cattle. It can be transmitted to humans. It’s called “Mad Cow” because of the strange way the cattle act that are infected with the disease. Mad Cow Disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. Mad cow disease is caused by an abnormal infectious protein called a preeon. The preeon was discovered by American neurologist Stanley B. Prusiner. Prions are a mutated form of a normal protein. These preeon proteins are spread when the body of an infected cow or human is eaten by another being. When in an animal, the proteins actually become severely deformed into a contagious shape, and while in this form, Breeds plaque fibers that slowly eat away at the victim’s brain. A preeon is a small protein linked to certain rare, fatal brain diseases in cows, sheep, humans, and other mammals. Preeon in cattle are from carcasses of scrapie-infected sheep. The spongiform encepalopathy is found on any type of cloven hoofed animals such as pigs, sheep and cattle. In sheep is is called scrapie spongiform encepalopathy. In humans is is called Creutzfeldt-Jakobs Disease. Mad Cow Disease was first recognized as an infectious disease in 1986 after it began to appear in cattle in Great Britain in 1985. It was made clear that the animals became infected because of eating pieces of cow and sheep in their bone meal (food). The British government outlawed the feeding of bone meal in order to halt the spread of the disease. It is normal and healthy for cattle to be fed soybean meal as a part of their diet. In England, soybeans don’t grow well, so British farmers fed their cattle an

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