5-15 IAN BSE Spongy Brain

 There is a reason that mad cow disease has the formal name Bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE.  It is a frightening disease that can actually bleed over into other species. All of that said there is much more to the story and as always, knowledge can prevent unnecessary fear.

 I had a fascinating discussion with Idaho’s chief veterinarian, Dr. Bill Barton, but then that’s redundant because every conversation with Dr. Barton is fascinating. I was interested in the effects of mad cow disease on the cow. The key to the term Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is the 2nd word… spongiform. Listen carefully. “What happens with this disease is that it creates vacuoles or a spongy appearance to the nervous tissue and that is why it is called a spongiform disease. If you look under the microscope at the infected tissue it would look like a sponge. There are little holes in it. If I understand things correctly, the only way it can be transmitted is if it is through the consumption of nervous tissue of the infected animal. Is that correct? That is correct and since we have had the feed ban in place where we do not feed meat and bone meal which contains spinal cords, brain and nervous tissue, the cases worldwide have dramatically decreased. There were tens of thousands of cases in the world during the 90s and early 2000 and in 2011 there were only 29 cases of mad cow disease worldwide.