Question:
Where I'm from, eating hamburgers is a way of life. Should I be worried about what mad cow disease could do to my brain?
-Bob from Minnesota
MegOnTheMind's Response:
Dear Bob,
This is a question that is weighing heavily on the minds of many people in the US and around the world. Mad cow disease, also called "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy" or BSE, only occurs in cows. The scare of mad cow disease for humans comes from the finding in the late 1980s that some people in the United Kingdom who ate meat from cows with BSE developed a similar disorder known as a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Diseas (vCJD). The FDA reports that this disease, vCJD, has only infected 155 cases world-wide.
vCJD is a fatal disease that causes massive brain cell loss, but the risk of developing this disease is very small. People who develop vCJD do so because they eat meat that contained brain or spinal cord matter from a cow infected with proteins called prions that cause BSE. Scientists believe that vCJD can only be contracted through brain and spinal cord tissue (and not meat or milk) of a cow infected with BSE. The cattle industry in the US has now taken measures to ensure that the brain and spinal cord of cattle are removed during the slaughtering process and before the meat is processed. Thus, the risk of contracting vCJD – even if you ate meat from an infected cow – is extremely low.
Still, you should be aware that ground beef, with low-grade meat, is more likely to contain brain or spinal cord residue than high-grade “prime cuts” of meat. Prime cuts are usually removed manually, rather than by machine and are thus less likely to contain spinal cord matter.
Overall, the risk of contracting vCJD by eating beef is remarkably low, but it doesn’t hurt to be aware of the risk factors and to be an informed consumer when purchasing meat at the grocery store or restaurant.
That's what's on my mind, now tell me, what's on yours!
-MegOnTheMind
MegOnTheMind© 2003-2006
Please note that while all submitted questions to MOTM will be considered, not all submitted questions will be able to be answered. Questions may be edited for clarity.
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