Essay On Mad Cow Disease

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: It happens when a prion protein misfolds itself, thus causing a “domino effect” which unfolds itself causing a malfunction.

Proteinaceous Infectious Particles, commonly known as Prions, are extremely rare misfolds of the protein PrPc, which cause fatally neurodegenerative diseases, and are theorized to be infectious only by the protein itself (U.S National Library of Medicine, 1998). This “protein-only theory” is still heavily debated today, as some scientists deny the theory, and there isn’t a significant amount of evidence on each side to qualify the theory or disprove it (Soto, C. 2011). The base “Prion” protein is encoded in the gene PRNP, while being non-infectious. Prions are most commonly found in human prion diseases, but they can also be in other animals in the form of Mad Cow Disease and Chronic Wasting Disease, classified as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies

The meats that consumers eat are slabs of a cow’s muscle tissue and the infectious meat is only found in the nerve tissue. Of course there is the possibility of having some of the contaminated meat passed on to the meat that consumers eat when the cows are cut, but the chances are very slim. Since this disease is contracted through eating contaminated meat, the site of infection should be in the digestive tract, yet this disease eats away at the brain and nervous system.

     Mad Cow Disease, scientifically referred to as (BSE) Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, is a disease that affects those humans who eat the meat from infected cows. Mad Cow Disease is one of several fatal brain diseases called (TSE) Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy. (USDA) There was evidence of a new illness resembling the sheep disease scrapie. It was technically named BSE but quickly acquired the mad cow tag because of the way infected cattle behave. (CNN) In 1997, there was an award given to Stanley Prusiner, for concluding that a distorted protein called a prion was responsible for Mad Cow Disease, noted the long incubation period made it difficult to distinguish (Bryant).

BSE is a form of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy that is transmitted when cattle consume feed that contains other animal protein from infected animals such as scrapie in sheep (CDC,

The effects of mad-cow disease on cattle are very obvious. This disease is not one in which you see a cow grazing and it looks perfectly fine, but a disease in which the cow looks as if it has no control over its own body and mindlessly wanders around. That is because having no control over its own body is exactly what happens.

BSE can be transmitted from one human to another through cannibalism or through transplantation of infected tissue. Consequently, certain human blood products and blood donations are not accepted from people who have lived in areas of the world where BSE outbreaks have occurred in cattle. BSE has been shown to be transmissible by blood transfusion in an experimental model using sheep. The U.K. surveillance unit for vCJD has also reported three cases of vCJD that occurred as a result of blood transfusion

What is Mad Cow Disease? Mad Cow Disease "is a normally extremely rare neurological disorder that affects the central nervous system of an animal and a human. The disease infested brain of the animal or human is slowly, progressively, and severely damaged. It has been categorized as a disease, which falls into the category of a disease known as Spongiform Encephalopathy. Having Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is an over-dramatized way of specifying that one has diseased brain tissue which is; spongy, porous, and no

The aggregation of prion proteins and their transmissibility from one cell to another has been shown to be evident (Cushman et al.; Goedert et al. 2010), therefore strongly suggesting that these events may play a role in pathogenesis for many diseases, including both AD and PD. While none of these diseases is infectious in an identical way as

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy is characterized by an unusually long incubation period ranging from 2-8 years. During the incubation period, an infected animal may not show any clinical signs suggesting it is in anyway unhealthy. This is a major reason several countries placed precautionary bans on blood donors. Experts believe it is entirely possible that a person could have contracted the infectious disease during the BSE outbreak and could be carrying the disease through an incubation period possibly extending beyond the suggested 2-8 year span without showing any clinical signs. Since no diagnostic test currently exists to test a person for vCJD while they are living, there is

feedlots (2.8 + 0.5%; USDA, 2013) only behind bovine respiratory disease and metabolic/digestive conditions. A survey conducted in Kansas 1970’s by Brower and Kiracofe (1972) indicated that 2% of all feedlot steers in Kansas experienced the buller steer syndrome. In the same manner, Brower and Kiracofe (1978) and Irwin et al. (1979) reported that the annual incidence of buller steers within the feedlot industry fell somewhere between 2 and 4%. A 15-year summary of buller incidence in Midwest feedlots consisting of over 5 million steers reported a buller incidence of 2.45% (Edwards, 1995). Furthermore, a 2-year study by Taylor et al. (1997b) at a western Canada feedlot using 78,445 male (intact) cattle indicated a buller incidence rate ranging from 0.0 to 11.2%, with an average incidence of

Mad Cow Disease Bovine spongiform encephalophathy ( BSE), which is mainly known as mad cow disease has infected the society and has put the lives of individuals at risk. This was very frightening to the people that ate meat during that time. The terrified people would not even want to eat hamburgers at MacDonald, steak at restaurant and much more. What also alarmed the people was the fact that there was a possibility of getting the human form of mad cow disease. This was called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) which is through tainted blood, but this was only a theory which

In everyday life, humans endure micro-organisms, bacteria, and fungi, due to Microbial contamination. This phenomenon occurs frequently, and people are unaware of the causes and effect of what microbial contamination can have to truly offer. By definition microbiological contamination occurs when non-intended or accidental introduction bacteria, yeast, mold, fungi, virus, prions, protozoa or their toxins and by-products is carried from one object to another object, person to person, or from an object to a person. (Sue,2007) Cross-contamination occurs during cooking. Specifically, it occurs when juices from raw meats or germs from unclean objects touch cooked or ready-to-eat foods.(Eleese Cunningham, 2015) or even in equipment at processing facilities not being cleaned properly, for instance, or any of the other numerous and sundry ways food can be mishandled a make it to someone, which can greatly increase the risk of food poisoning. (Danilo Alfaro, 2017) Cross contamination does not only consist of bacteria but furthermore, it consists of a virus or a toxin of some sort. (Danilo Alfaro, 2017). It ranges from complex multicellular eukaryotes to even the most unicellular prokaryotic organism, and at any crack or even any type of opening at West Carleton, there will be definitely living microorganisms being passed along from one person to another unconsciously.

Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) are neurodegenerative diseases that are thought to be caused by the misfolding of prion proteins. Prions are able to replicate in the absence of nucleic acids. TSEs include: scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, kuru, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease, and Fatal Familial Insomnia. They can affect many different animals, including humans. Currently, there are no ways to diagnose, treat, or cure TSEs, as much more research is needed before these diseases are completely understood.

the ones that cause the well known “ mad cow ” disesase in Britain and “scrapie”