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Mad Cow Disease Concerns in the United States?

© Maggie Herman

In early February, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced plans to temporarily suspend imports of Brazilian beef products, following the lead of Canadian officials nearly a week earlier. Both countries cited concerns about Brazilian beef because the country was importing animal products from Europe as late as 1999.

The Brazilian beef ban is just one of a flurry of recent concerns about the potential for a mad cow disease outbreak in North America. Although the disease has not been connected to any cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the human form of mad cow, officials have cited concerns about a number of products that may be linked to the fatal disease that has been linked to at least 80 fatalities in Europe.

Mad cow disease—clinically known as Bovine Spongioform Encephalopathy (BSE)—is one of several variations of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy diseases found in several animals. BSE creates an abnormal protein to destroy central nervous system and brain tissue, resulting in a slow and painful death.

The outbreak of BSE in Europe is believed to have been the result of cows eating bone matter used as a protein supplement in cattle feed that contained sheep fatally injured by a similar spongiform encephalopathy called scrapie. While the practice of feeding cows sheep protein was a common industry practice since the 1970s, a change in the rendering process in the 1980s is believed to have caused the infection in cattle crops throughout the United Kingdom.

Scrapie is not transmissible to humans, but scientists believe that a change in the abnormal protein that occurs in cattle creates a human vulnerability when ingested. While the cause of spongiform encephalopathies is currently unknown, the FDA believes that a prion protein that normally occurs in the body is modified such that it infects tissue in the brain, spinal cord, and retina.

People can develop symptoms associated with CJD up to 10 years after exposure to BSE. The early symptoms of the disease include serious psychiatric problems and sensory deficits. Later symptoms include poor muscular control, muscle spasm, mental confusion, and abnormal electroencephalograms. The life expectancy of someone who contracts CJD is about 13 months from the manifestation of the first symptomatology. At death, autopsies reveal open spongy areas in the brain and prion protein plaque accumulations on effected tissue.

The fear of CJD in North America is not limited to imports of beef products from other countries. The FDA has also cited concerns linked to vaccines, drugs, dietary supplements, and certain cattle feed production practices implemented in the United States.

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