Mad cow disease
...y end up dying. The reason why this agent is destroying the brain is unknown, and there is no vaccine or treatment that has been created in the United States or any other country. BSE Related Diseases There are many diseases found that have been associated with BSE mad cow disease in a variety of other species. Although it is known that the disease has jumped the barrier of species, it is clear they all are a chronic degenerative disease that attacks the central nervous system of animals and creates the same sponge like holes in the brain. Scrapie, which affects sheep and goats and is a form of BSE, has contaminated feed that was fed to cattle, which ultimately resulted in the cow developing BSE. Other related diseases to mad cow disease are transmissible mink encephalopathy, feline spongiform encephalopathy, Chronic Wasting Disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (“Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy”). Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) CWD was diagnosed in captive mule deer in the late 1960’s in a research facility in Colorado as a fatal wasting syndrome. This particular epidemic is mostly found in Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska but has also been reported in other parts of the United States (Belay). The prions that are found in the brains of animals infected with the disease, primarily transfer from one animal to the next either naturally by saliva, feces or through domestic husbandry practices. Animals that have contracted the illness have all the symptoms of BSE and in some cases head tremors may occur. The disease is highly transferable among captive deer either through animal to animal contact, exposure to the disease in the environment, and through contaminated feed and water sources (Belay). A study showed that CWD is passed easily through deer kept together in a penned environment for four years, within the four years 90 percent of the deer had contracted the disease just by simply living together (Dickerman). It is also found that wild deer and elk that are in the proximity of ranches that have CWD in their game herd become infected just from being in the area. This is the reasoning why CWD in deer and elk is spreading faster than its related BSE form found in cattle. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and nvCJD CJD and nvCJD is a rare degenerative disease that affects the central nervous system of humans. Many people who contract the disease by eating contaminated meat products of infected animals, show signs of psychiatric problems, muscle spasms, loss of their muscle coordination, balance, speech, hearing, vision and have memory loss (Freudenrich). Many patients lapse into seizures and eventually fall into a coma and die. The median age of patients who contract CJD is 68 years (Freudenrich). In contrast, the median age for patients that contracted nvCJD is 28 years (Freudenrich). nvCJD can only be confirmed in patients through an examination of the brain tissue by a biopsy or an autopsy. Most persons who have this disease consumed BSE contaminated meat many years earlier before showing signs of having nvCJD (Freudenrich). There is an incubation period, although it is unknown, it will probably be measured in years or decades. Classic CJD patients are usually predominantly younger than nvCJD patients, many of them die within the 6 months of diagnosis (Freudenrich). Alternatives The Impact on Livestock Industries With Britain reporting the first case of BSE, cattle market prices dropped dramatically in fear that more people would contract the CJD disease by eating infected beef products. The United States shunned imported cattle from Britain in hopes of protecting U.S. ranches from contracting the degenerative brain wasting disease. As the United States focused on BSE reports all over Europe, Canada was also dealing with their own developing cases of mad cow disease. With U.S. borders still open to Canada and the United States focusing on Europe, one cow infected with BSE slipped into Washington from a Canadian ranch. It was the United State’s first reported case of Mad cow in American borders. It is often claimed that the U.S. food supply is the safest in the world (Raine) but there are now 58 countries that have a ban on US imported beef, due to one cow out of 96 billion that tested positive for BSE. An estimated 26 billion pounds of beef valued at 27 billion dollars will be lost due to the restrictions on American beef (Raine). Japan, one of the United States’ largest importers of beef products, refuses to allow any untested beef onto their shores. In some areas the U.S. Department of Agriculture is denying testing for mad cow disease in some ranches and slaughterhouses (Zaleski). It is implied that the USDA is afraid that with testing done, there will be more animals found with BSE (Zaleski). Denying testing for BSE is costing ranches thousands of money from exporting beef to Japan; they will not except any untested animals. There is also a liability and responsibility to the public health that is being disregarded, due to the lack of testing the USDA is denying to slaughterhouses. Solutions Laws/Restrictions With the recent development of BSE and CWD in America, new changes and laws have been passed to keep Americans safe. But have these changes been enough to protect people from getting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? Are these changes enough to ease the minds of beefeaters everywhere? The answer to all these question is no. In 1988 the UK banned using any ruminants or ruminant by-products in animal feed and in 1996 they stopped selling meat and bone meal feed made from infected cattle (“How Now Mad Cow?”). The ban on imported live cattle to the U.S. took place in 1989, along with most bovine products such as tallow and bone meal (“How Now Mad Cow?”). In 1997, Canada and the U.S. finally prohibited the use of most ruminant protein in the...