Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease
CJD is at times called a human form of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) even though classic CJD is not related to BSE; however,10 Shocking Facts About Mad Cow Disease
A case of mad cow disease was discovered yesterday in California,
sending carnivores across the country into a panic. But mad cow is
exceedingly rare in the U.S. and not likely to be contracted by humans.
So before you pass on that juicy hamburger at lunch, read the facts.
Humans can’t get mad cow disease
For
all the fuss over mad cow disease, otherwise known as bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), it’s actually not transmittable to humans. Those
mad cows can, however, contract a form of the disease that is
transmittable to humans called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which, although technically not mad cow, is just as unpleasant and deadly. The strain is always fatal in cows, and usually fatal in humans within 13 months of symptoms occurring.
You won’t get it from eating steak
Often
when there’s a mad cow outbreak, panicked people stop eating red meat
which is then pulled from supermarket shelves. But humans can’t get the
disease by simply eating regular cow meat. Generally, a human will only
be infected if they eat the nerve tissue—brains
or spinal cord—of an infected animal. People cannot get the disease by
simply eating muscle meat like ground beef or steak, or by drinking milk
from an infected cow. Additionally, humans cannot spread it to each
other through casual contact. However, people who have spent more than 3
months in an area where many cases of mad cow disease have been
reported aren’t allowed to give blood in the U.S.
Humans don’t necessarily get CJD from cows
It’s unlikely that humans can contract Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by eating mad cow-contaminated meat. There are three types of CJD,
including a hereditary version of the disease which accounts for
roughly 10 percent of all cases. About 85 percent of these cases are
considered Sporadic CJD, where the patient has no known risk factors.
There is an acquired form of CJD, which accounts for less than 1 percent
of patients struggling with the disease. It’s usually transmitted when a
person is exposed to infected brain or nervous system tissue during
medical procedures.
If you’re infected with CJD, you probably won’t know it until years later
Symptoms of vCJD include
tingling sensations and trouble moving parts of the body. As the
disease worsens, the victim will lose the ability to walk. The disease
can also cause brain damage and lead to psychotic behavior, dementia,
and coma. Worst of all, there’s no cure for vCJD and people usually die
within 13 months of showing symptoms. Furthermore, it can take up to 15 years for symptoms to manifest themselves.
Mad cow was first discovered in 1986
Mad Cow disease was first discovered in Great Britain in 1986. However, it’s highly likely that the first infections occurred sporadically in the 1970s.
Mad cow is extremely rare in the United States
Cases of Mad Cow Disease in humans or in cows are exceedingly rare
in the U.S. There have only been three cases before the current
outbreak—in 2003, 2005, and 2006. The only confirmed cases of vCJD in
humans in the U.S. have eventually been traced back totime spent in other countries.
However, the disease is quite deadly when it does occur. The outbreak
in the United Kingdom that peaked in 1993 killed 180,000 cows and 150
people.
Latest case caused by ‘random mutation’
The mad cow in central California didn’t contract the disease by consuming infected cattle feed,
the U.S. Agriculture Department has confirmed. Furthermore, the case
could have easily gone undiscovered, since the deceased cow showed
little symptoms of the disease and tests are performed on a random
selection of dead cows. Specialists are attributing this strain of BSE
to a “random mutation,” which means there’s little risk of a large outbreak.
Mad cow destroys the brain and spine in cattle
What makes mad cow disease so deadly? Caused by a deformed protein known as a prion,
the disease attacks and destroys the brain and spinal cord in cattle.
Humans usually contract the CJD variant by consuming infected brain or
spinal tissue, which in turn can cause sponge-like holes in the brain.
Thoroughly cooking meat won’t help
You
could scorch the meat, roast it into shoe leather, nuke it beyond
recognition, and boil it for hours on the stove, but that won’t protect you
from the deadly CJD variant. The prions aren’t affected by heat or
other methods used to kill food-borne pathogens. Prions can survive in
extremes, requiring upwards of 1,800 degrees of heat to be neutralized. Even sterilization processes used by hospitals are largely ineffective.
Mad cow is on the decline
Good news! Mad cow disease is far less common than it was 10 years ago. Last year, there were 29 cases worldwide, a 99 percent decline since the disease peaked in 1992 with 37,311 cases. So now we can go back to worrying about salmonella and E. coli.
end quote from:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/25/10-facts-about-mad-cow-disease.html
My personal solution is to never eat anything from a cow except milk and cheese and cottage cheese and other milk products. In other words I don't eat cow flesh at all. (even though recently I have been eating buffalo jerky and beef jerky while traveling to get someplace quicker and only stopping for gasoline and rest rooms while traveling. But, I've decided to give even jerky up after this experience with a friend who died of this.
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