1/17/07 BSE Free Cattle

Finally, animal genetic engineering that could prove beneficial for man kind. Instead of cloning a tropical blue fish, pet cat or barrel horse scientists have come up with a way to genetically engineer cattle making them free from the protein that causes mad cow disease. In this breakthrough an international team of scientists from both Japan and the US announced that they had "knocked out" the gene responsible for mad cow. To make certain that the genetically enhanced cattle continue to remain free from BSE , the surviving cows have been injected with the diseases itself and scientists will monitor the cattle's immune responses and release the results latter this year. While anti-BSE cattle makes Japan all a twitter, I wonder if the all the money spent on this research is prudent especially light of the fact that BSE doesn't pose a high threat in the US. Given the number of people killed by cancers, and even e-coli in food born illnesses , why are we investing millions to fight mad cow disease that has killed only 180 people worldwide in two decades.