Mad cow in Washington?

"John Keeney" wrote in message
...
It is a new, incurable, infectious, deadly disease with freighting
symptoms.
With proper attention the disease itself can likely be sent the way of
smallpox
at minimal cost but if ignored it could be epidemic.

It's not infectious, at least not unless you choose to feed on dead
sufferers... I don't think it's infectious amongst animals in the same
herd, but the worry is if the triggers are present in the food then they
could all develop it. (Unless I recall incorrectly.) The massive slaughter
we saw in the UK two years ago was not to halt the spread of mad-cow, but
foot and mouth, which is infectious.

The main problem with vCJD is that the incubation time is up to ten years.
until which time it's undetectable, and as you say is a vicious, incurable
wasting disease. The outreak in the UK is (widely assumed) to be down to the
practice of feeding bovine livestock with animal feed made from ground-up
cows. The disease develops from the injestion of spinal and brain tissue of
the same-species. CJD has also been reported in the past in remote
canibalistic tribes. Another possible infection method is the use of growth
hormone used on unusually small human children to promote growth. The
hormone is developed from cow brain tissue.

I would choose to worry about mad cow if cases start appearing throughout
the country, as that indicates that the whole national farming procedures
are flawed, and that infected feed is returning to the animals' food chain.
In which case, you may well start seeing cases of vCJD in humans within the
next decade.

Si