Mad Cow Dsease (BSE)?

Question

How is it spread from cow to cow?

Answer 1

Basically it was caused by feeding cows animal feed that had remains of infected animals within it as part of how it was made.

Answer 2

Mad cow disease is not caused by a virus. It is caused by ,believe or not, infectious protein particles called prions.

Yup, MCD is not transferred by direct contact, ie thru saliva or other bodily fluids, since prions are accumulated inside the nervous system.

Cow feeds may be derived from unwanted cow parts which contain these prions. So, it's essentially cannibalism that transfers this disease from one cow to another.

- Poopy, Virology student

Answer 3

How BSE is spread is still not 100% known.  The scientific community definatly has THEORIES, but they are just that, theories, not proven fact.

I personally believe one theory to be very sound and probably the correct one.

First BSE is NOT spread from cow to cow.  That is proven.  Cows can be penned together, infected, and non infected, and the non infected will not become ill by mating together, sharing food, water, or salt blocks.

To up the protien levels in the feed of dairy cattle, feed manufatures started to grind up bits of left over animals from butchering.  namely sheep parts, like brain stuff in sheeps spinal cords.

Sheep have a disease called scrapies.  It is a disease of the brain in sheep, and its been in sheep for a very long time. It is a degenerative disease affecting the central nervous system of sheep.

So the most popular and widley accept theory as to how cows first contracted scrappies was by being fed bits of these infected sheep in their feed and being turned un-naturally into carnivores.

So the scrapies infected cows, which turned into a disease called BSE, or Mad Cow.

Since it was not reccognized at first as a potentially horrible problem, these infected cows were then sent off to slaughter, since they were now worthless as dairy cows.

Of course this mad the proccess of infecting more cows much faster, since they were now being fed bits of cows infected with BSE.

A ban was finally put on feeding bits of ground up animals to RUMINANTS (cud chewers).  In the U.S.A.  it is still legal to feed ground up animal part to horses, and they still do it..you MUST read the lables on high protien/fats feeds for horses.

BSE (Mad Cow) is found almost entirely in dairy cows, since they are the ones feed the ultra high protien feeds.  BSE is almost unknow in beef cattle, since they are NOT fed the ultra high protien feeds.

If you are worried about BSE tainted products, stay away from hamburger, sausages, hotdogs, and proccessed lunch meats, products like canned chili with hamburger.  All of those can contain bits of cow brain, or spinal cord, where the highest concentrations of the prions are found.

A good cut of beef (like a steak) most likely came from a beef cow, not a dairy cow, and is probably just fine to eat.

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming ove 20 years

Answer 4

When cattle eat the brain and spinal cord tissue of other bovines that are infected. It is usually fed in the form of bone meal and/blood meal.

Answer 5

Some believe that the feed lots ,trying to cut corners on cost,fed the cattle intrals and animal parts ground up and put in the feed.Some how in the process the animal parts became  bacterilogically infectious and it attacked the nervous system.It is illegal in the USA to do this type of feeding any more.When it comes to proffit margin man will do almost anything ,even risking our health.