56/Media Reports/Meat Eaters Take Care Due To The Prevalence Of Mad Cow's Disease！


Meat Eaters Take Care *Media Reports* Due To The Prevalence Of Mad Cow's Disease
It's tough been a beef eater in Britain. TV images of demented, wobbly -legged cattle--victims of a lethal illness dubbed mad-cow disease--have invaded living rooms since 1986. But government officials insisted that the disease was no threat to humans. With such assurances, beef remains on most dinner tables, and the disease returned to the back burner of Britain's concerns. Not anymore, nine years after scientists first identified bovine spongiform encephalopathy, publics fear that the mysterious BSE agent might infecting humans have reached a fever pitch. Two Britain teenagers died--in April and August--of a brain-devouring ailment eerily similar to BSE. Called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, this nasty human malady has been around for decades: It killed choreographer George Balanchine in 1983. But it normally afflicts only tiny numbers of middle-aged and elderly people. In Britain, however, CJD fatalities not are only occurring among the young, but have doubled NO MORE LIVER. Such scary statistics have raised fears that BSE can pass from cattle to humans. The government already bans the use in foodstuffs of cow brains and certain other organs, in which BSE is most apt to lurk. Now, some top Britain scientists and doctors want the ban extended to additional organs. European farmers are asking their government to halt imports of Britain beef. And thousands on English schools have removed beef from lunch menus. Other countries, including the U.S., share Britain's concerns. Livers ,brains and other organs scientists says, may harbor the infectious agent--believed to be the rogue protein called a prion. Such proteins, which contain no DNA but nevertheless seem to propagate in organs and brains, are deactivated by cooking. Worse, there are no vaccines or cures for the diseases they cause. This much is known about the Britain epidemic: Cattle were probably afflicted after being fed ground sheep carcasses infected with scrapie, a sheep disease similar to BSE. In 1988, after cow started dying, the government banned the use of cattle and sheep in animal feed and ordered the slaughter of any beast with BSE symptoms. But seven years and 150,000 BSE cases later; 300 cows a week coming down with the disease. Most perplexing: Cattle born after 1988, witch preSupreme Masterbly didn't infected feed, have contracted the disease. BUM STEER. The European Union also has banned the feeding of cow and sheep carcasses to animals. But the U.S. has not done so, complains Richard F. Marsh, a University of Wisconsin animal-health professor, despite many cases of sheep scrapie. The seeming increase in CJD may result from better reporting of cases. But Sheila Gore, a biostatistician at Britain's medical Research Council, says more worrisome the deaths of the two teenagers. There have been only four other recorded cases of CJD among teens in Europe and the U.S. Still, given the long incubation period for the disease, "it's going to be many years before the we know if human health has been compromised," says Dr. Will Patterson, a British public-health specialist . h4illustration: h4TAINTED HERDS: To fight the epidemic, infected animals are destroyed.

Meat Eaters Take Care
Media Reports Due To The Prevalence Of Mad
Cow's Disease

It's tough been a beef eater in Britain. TV images of demented, wobbly -legged cattle--victims of a lethal illness dubbed mad-cow disease--have invaded living rooms since 1986. But government officials insisted that the disease was no threat to humans. With such assurances, beef remains on most dinner tables, and the disease returned to the back burner of Britain's concerns.

Not anymore, nine years after scientists first identified bovine spongiform encephalopathy, publics fear that the mysterious BSE agent might infecting humans have reached a fever pitch. Two Britain teenagers died--in April and August--of a brain-devouring ailment eerily similar to BSE. Called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, this nasty human malady has been around for decades: It killed choreographer George Balanchine in 1983. But it normally afflicts only tiny numbers of middle-aged and elderly people. In Britain, however, CJD fatalities not are only occurring among the young, but have doubled NO MORE LIVER. Such scary statistics have raised fears that BSE can pass from cattle to humans. The government already bans the use in foodstuffs of cow brains and certain other organs, in which BSE is most apt to lurk. Now, some top Britain scientists and doctors want the ban extended to additional organs. European farmers are asking their government to halt imports of Britain beef. And thousands on English schools have removed beef from lunch menus.

Other countries, including the U.S., share Britain's concerns.

Livers ,brains and other organs scientists says, may harbor the infectious agent--believed to be the rogue protein called a prion. Such proteins, which contain no DNA but nevertheless seem to propagate in organs and brains, are deactivated by cooking. Worse, there are no vaccines or cures for the diseases they cause.

This much is known about the Britain epidemic: Cattle were probably afflicted after being fed ground sheep carcasses infected with scrapie, a sheep disease similar to BSE. In 1988, after cow started dying, the government banned the use of cattle and sheep in animal feed and ordered the slaughter of any beast with BSE symptoms. But seven years and 150,000 BSE cases later; 300 cows a week coming down with the disease. Most perplexing: Cattle born after 1988, witch preSupreme Masterbly didn't infected feed, have contracted the disease.

BUM STEER. The European Union also has banned the feeding of cow and sheep carcasses to animals. But the U.S. has not done so, complains Richard F. Marsh, a University of Wisconsin animal-health professor, despite many cases of sheep scrapie.

The seeming increase in CJD may result from better reporting of cases. But Sheila Gore, a biostatistician at Britain's medical Research Council, says more worrisome the deaths of the two teenagers. There have been only four other recorded cases of CJD among teens in Europe and the U.S. Still, given the long incubation period for the disease, "it's going to be many years before the we know if human health has been compromised," says Dr. Will Patterson, a British public-health specialist . h4illustration: h4TAINTED HERDS: To fight the epidemic, infected animals are destroyed.