Cow Disease Research Paper

The news was everywhere. A strange epidemic affecting cows was spreading through a farm in England. Nobody knew what it was, but it everyone knew how disastrous it was. When a cow first contracted the disease, it became violent and could not stand properly. After that, the cow developed more symptoms, grew weaker, and soon died. That was the worst thing about the disease; no cows survived. Today, we know that this disease is a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), better known as mad cow disease. BSE previously originated from another TSE called scrapie. It started when scrapie-infected sheep were put into rendering machines and processed into protein. This protein was later added into
“In 1977, the Food and Drug Administration banned the practice of feeding animal by-products to cattle” (Walters, 39). Twelve years later, FDA prohibited the entire carcass of BSE-infected cows and the brain and spinal cord from cows thirty months and older from being incorporated into animal food. Today, FDA makes sure that no high-risk cows come to America and the United States Department of Agriculture “maintains an ongoing BSE surveillance program and currently tests approximately 40,000 high-risk cattle annually” (BSE Prevention and Control). For scrapie, “control efforts have focused on import restrictions, identifying and depopulating infected animals and selectively breeding for scrapie resistance” (Scrapie Prevention and Control). Since scrapie is extremely contagious, prevention is essential. Although these regulations have definitely controlled BSE and scrapie, there have been four recent cases of BSE in America and scrapie is not destroyed. Preventing diseases is not good enough; we need to eradicate