mad cow disease

Are you a member of the meat-eating public? Then you might want to familiarize yourself with “Mad Cow Disease,” or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE). First described in 1986 in Great Britain, this disease is a fatal, slow-onset encephalopathy, or disease of the brain, in cattle. “Why should I be concerned?” you might ask. Mad cow disease is the only known form of a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy to be transmitted from animals to humans, which makes it a lethal zoonotic disease.