Mad Cow Disease
There are two new diseases in a growing line to plague humankind. Bovine Spongiform Encenphalopathy and its human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, better known as mad cow disease, are new kinds of diseases that appear to be unstoppable. Mad Cow disease is caused by a mutated chain of proteins in a strand of DNA. Because it is neither a virus nor a bacterium, the protein chain has been named a prion. What happens is still unknown, but the theory is that an animal ingests a mutated prion, and once inside, it attacks other strands of DNA, mutating them into like prions. The effect is a change in the physiological make up of tissues in the animal. The most significant side effect is the "sponging" of the brain and tonsil tissues. Essentially, the brain of an affected animal turns into a sponge-like piece of matter, filled with holes which kills the animal. Due to the lack of information and action on the part of the European Union, Mad Cow disease is now a wide spread epidemic that is destroying their economy and people. To emphasize the infancy of BSE, it is important to understand a little of its history. It is believed that the first cattle were infected in the late 1970's in Great Britain, but the f
In that four-year period, BSE grew by 1,304 percent. Now the farmers are not spending money at the other businesses in the community. It became apparent to health officials that this was not Scrapie but something different. To stop the incredibly quick spread of BSE, the E. If European Union officials would have responded quickly and seriously to the initial twenty-three cases of BSE in 1985, they could have limited the spread and growth of the disease significantly. This means that all the millions of people that have lived or visited Europe since the 1970's may have been infected, but we might not know for ten to twenty more years. ignored BSE in cattle, the disease mutated and infected five humans the same way Scrapie mutated and infected cattle. A community is built around large cattle ranches. Before 1989 it was a common practice to grind up the remains of slaughtered and dead animals and use them in feed for cattle. Still not understanding the severity of BSE and CJD, the government gave feed producers a six-month period in which to diminish their current stock of feed before the ban took effect. Now most of the community is jobless, and forced to either starve or move to find other work. In 1996 researchers discovered the BSE prion and how it works. Since there were no reported cases of similar symptoms in humans, it was believed that BSE could not be transmitted to humans.
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Acceptance Essays
