A man made a journey in search of a feast.
When he came upon the fancy restaurant, his destination he reached.
He was seated at his usual table, and ordered his favorite meat.
The filet mignon so delightful, he savored every piece.
Uttering a sigh of satisfaction, the man was truly glad.
Never once did it occur to him that his meal was really mad.
The man never knew what hit him when 15 years had passed.
After supping on scores of meat dishes, his brain began to crash.
At first he would shake and tremble but later became paralyzed.
The poor unfortunate became demented and his life passed before his eyes.

Human Ingenuity
Some great minds in the 1970s and 1980s conceived of incorporating the rendered parts of cows and sheep into the feed of farm animals and cows. The new agricultural feed supplements increased the protein levels of the feed which beefed up the cattle and increased the milk output of dairy cattle. Along with the new agricultural practices an infectious strain was brewing. The new food supplements composed of animal parts, blood, bone meal, and fats were processed under low temperature which did not kill the deadly agent. Little known to the unwitting farmers feeding their livestock that Scrapie, a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy or T.S.E. would jump the species barrier to cows. In cows, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or B.S.E. makes cows mad. Since the beginning of the time of domestication, cows, sheep and goats have been primarily grass feeders but in the wink of an eye, they have turned into carnivores, if not cannibals.

The panic began in 1986 and the European nations cringed in fear because many believed Mad Cows Disease was about to become a plague that would reach epidemic proportions. It began spreading throughout Europe like a hot disease. It nearly wiped out the British beef industry and 3.7 animals were slaughtered. The disease was quickly tagged “Mad Cow” because of the abnormal way cows acted. They became nervous and aggressive and lost their ability to stand. Finally, their bodies deteriorated until they died. In 1996, the British Government conceded (despite their previous denials) that there was a link between the Mad Cow meat people were eating, and the new brain disease called a variant of Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease or vC.J.D.

In a far distant land, in Papau, New Guinea, a primitive tribe of Fore Highlanders ritually consumed the brains of their dead. The ritual cannibalism infected them with a strange disease that resulted in the loss of coordination, dementia and eventually death. Later it was found that this disease is similar to the Mad Cow Disease. Once the tribesmen stopped this practice the disease disappeared.

What T.S.E., B.S.E. and vC.J.D. all have in common is a mutating protein called prions. Prion proteins target and wreak havoc with the brain. These insidious agents riddle the brain with holes.
The incubation period for cattle eating rendered feed is approximately 2 to 8 years. In humans it can take a lot longer, anywhere from 10 to 30 years. vC.J.D. begins as depression and anxiety, as it progresses, the sufferer’s limbs become paralyzed with accompanying involuntary tremors and devastating dementia. In the terminal stage, the person ends his life in a mute state. Several theories abound: some researchers believe people become infected by eating one serving of tainted meat; others, believe that prions build up by eating tainted meat over a long period of time. Everything which includes cow parts is suspect, including blood transfusions, vaccinations, cosmetics, candies and even the gelatin capsules of vitamins.

The USDA, the FDA and the CDC have been conducting B.S.E. surveillance since 1990. The USDA states that not one case of Mad Cow has surfaced in the U.S. Recently, however, a USDA News Release stated that the USDA removed the quarantined sheep from a Vermont Farm in March of 2001. Several of the sheep from the flock had tested positive for T.S.E.

A frightening scenario could play itself out here in America with much more catastrophic effects. The US has a much larger economic investment in the meat and dairy industry than does Europe. Current agricultural practices in the US make it ripe for the conditions that led to the epidemic in Britain and neighboring European countries. Avoiding an American outbreak of the disease may be only a matter of chance. In the US, meat and dairy farmers have been including food supplements in the form of rendered animal proteins for decades. These include animal fats, bone meal, blood and meat proteins. It’s against the laws of nature for animals to eat their own kind, eventually human ingenuity pays a price as deadly diseases turn and threaten us.

Many theories are floating around about the nature of these new diseases/ plagues but scientists do agree: the emergence of vC.J.D. is linked to people eating beef contaminated from Mad Cows.b