Mad Cow Disease

Over the past several years, mad cow disease (also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) has spread in Europe and appeared in Canada. On December 23, 2003, officials announced the first confirmed case of mad cow disease found in the US. Mad cow is a fatal disease that causes progressive neurological degeneration in cattle. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) is a similar disease that occurs in humans and evidence indicates that humans can acquire vCJD after consuming BSE-contaminated cattle products. Factory farming practices such as grinding up left-over bits of sheep and cows and feeding them to other cows contribute to the spread of Mad Cow disease.

General Resources

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

Information and updates on mad cow disease, including federal register notices on pending rules and regulations regarding BSE. (US FDA)

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)

Website about mad cow from USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. (USDA)

BSE and CJD Information and Resources

Information and links from the Center for Infectious Diseases, part of the Centers for Disease Control.

The BSE Inquiry

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) are diseases increasingly found in humans and animals. This report examines the recent emergence of these diseases. An initiative of the parliament of the United Kingdom. (October 2000)

Mad Cow Disease: Are Americans At Risk?

An excellent factsheet on the disease and how it affects humans.

Mad Cow Disease Factsheet

Facts and figures related to mad cow disease.

Mad Cow Disease Information and Action

Created by the Organic Consumers Association, this site provides up-to-date information about mad cow disease.

Mad Cow News Headlines & Resources

A listing of mad cow disease headlines, documents and other resources available from Ag Observatory and other Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy programs.

Mad Cow Prevention Rules Violated by 300 U.S. Companies

New data from the US Food and Drug Administration’s database of animal feed company inspection records, updated for the first time in 17 months, reveals that the number of companies violating the law is more than double the number reported by the FDA in April 2002. (Press Release, Friends of the Earth and Family Farm Defenders, October 10, 2003) Also see:

Mad Cow USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?

Book detailing the history of TSE’s (transmissible spongiform encephalopathies), including mad cow disease in the UK, scrapie in sheep, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans. Book is available for free as a pdf download. (Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Center for Media and Democracy. Common Courage Press, 1997)

The Official Mad Cow Disease Home Page

7,431+ articles about mad cow and new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, scrapie, and more. More news and policy information at the Organic Consumers Association site.

Press Release: Expanded “Mad Cow” Safeguards Announced to Strengthen Existing Firewalls Against BSE Transmission

Press release from the FDA on the new public health measures to strengthen the 1997 feed ban. (FDA, January 26, 3004)

Prion Diseases and the BSE Crisis

Article by Stanley Prusiner, who won the Nobel Prize for his work in identifying prions, the protein that causes mad cow when deformed. (Science Magazine)

Questions and Answers Regarding Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)

An overview of BSE and CJD prepared by the CDC. (Centers for Disease Control, National Center for Infectious Diseases)

Statement from Stanley B. Prusiner, MD, about ‘Mad Cow’ Disease in the United States

Statement from the Nobel Prize-winning doctor who discovered prions, a type of protein found in mammals. Most scientists believe that malformed prions cause mad cow disease. Prusiner discusses issues surrounding mad cow and his recommendations.

USDA’s Mad Cow Disease Surveillance Program: A Comparison of State Cattle-Testing Rates

Compares cattle testing for mad cow between states from August 1997 – December 2000. (Public Citizen and Government Accountability Project, July 19, 2001)

US Violates World Health Organization Guidelines for Mad Cow Disease

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association describes government and industry efforts to safeguard the American public from mad cow disease as “swift,” “decisive,” and “aggressive.” The US Secretary of Agriculture adds “diligent,” “vigilant,” and “strong.” The world’s authority on these diseases disagrees. (Organic Consumers Association, July 15, 2003)

What Canadians Need to know About Mad Cow Disease

Factsheet on mad cow disease and Canada; written before the country’s first case of the disease in Alberta. (Canadian Health Coalition, 2001)

Reports

1997 Ruminant Feed Ban

The original feed ban came into effect on August 4, 1997. Although the ban prohibited ruminant remains from being fed to other ruminants, it did not eliminate all potential sources of BSE contamination from cattle feed. For instance, cow’s blood could still be fed to other cows, ruminants could be fed to pigs and poultry, and pigs and poultry could be fed to ruminants. Furthermore, the ban was not adequately enforced by the FDA.

Analysis of 2002 FSIS Bovine AMR Products Survey Results

The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the USDA determined that 35% of the samples of advanced meat recovery (AMR) products collected from US meat processing facilities contained unacceptable quantities of nervous tissue, which poses a high risk to consumers due to its ability to transmit vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: Background, Evolution, and Current Concerns

The epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the United Kingdom, which began in 1986 and has affected nearly 200,000 cattle, is thought to have caused an outbreak of human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease due to human consumption of beef products contaminated by central nervous system tissue. (Paul Brown, et. al, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Vol. 7, No. 1, Jan-Feb 2001)

Evaluation of the Potential for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the United States

Released in 2001 by the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis, this study provides an evaluation of USDA measures to prevent the spread of BSE into the US. Based on the results of analyses utilizing a probabilistic simulation model, the study suggests that “BSE is extremely unlikely to become established in the US.” However, this conclusion is challenged by the findings of a USDA subcommittee on BSE released February 4, 2004.

Extraneural Pathologic Prion Protein in Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease

Patients with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease had the prion, PrPSc, in brain tissue, as well as some incidence of the prion in the spleen and skeletal-muscles. (Markus Glatzel, MD, et. al., New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 349:1812-1820, November 6, 2003)

Mad Cow Disease: Improvements in the Animal Feed Ban and Other Regulatory Areas Would Strengthen U.S. Prevention Efforts

Released by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) in 2002, this report provides detailed information about the FDA’s failure to adequately enforce the 1997 Animal Feed Ban.

Prions Nobel Lecture by Stanley Prusiner

Stanley Prusiner received the Nobel Prize for Philosophy or Medicine in 1997 for his discovery of prions. In this technical document, Prusiner describes the prion, the research that led to its discovery, and the impact of this work on the study of TSE disorders.

Report on Measures Relating to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in the United States

A subcommittee of the USDA’s Foreign Animal and Poultry Disease Advisory Committee released this report on February 4, 2004. The report suggests that cattle in the US have already been infected with mad cow disease and recommends policy responses including prohibition of all specified risk material (SRM) from human and animal food supplies, exclusion of all mammalian and poultry protein from ruminant feeds, discontinuation of AMR and MRM processing of skulls and vertebral columns of cattle, and BSE testing of all cattle older than 30 months in high risk populations.

The Use of a Marked Strain of Pseudomonas fluorescens to Model the Spread of Brain Tissue to the Musculature of Cattle after Shooting with a Captive Bolt Gun

This study determined that the common industry practice of captive bolt stunning can spread central nervous system (CNS) tissue throughout the cow’s body. Since CNS tissue is believed to contain the material that transmits mad cow disease and vCJD, captive bolt stunning may compromise the safety of the U.S. meat supply.