Mad cow disease is the talk of the nation. The infected dairy cow in Washington state has many Americans eyeing juicy beef steaks with suspicion.
UW-Madison professors in animal and meat sciences said they show no hesitation to consume beef personally, although they acknowledge there are negative impacts the beef industry must strive to overcome.
\I am still confident in the safety of our beef and meat products and continue to consume beef products,"" said Jeff Lehmkuhler, a beef specialist at UW-Madison.
Animal science Professor Daniel Schaefer agrees. ""After having digested the circumstances, biology and risks, my opinion is that the dominant impact of the incident is on the cattle or beef price, not public safety,"" he said.
BSE, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is an infectious disease carried by prions. Prions are normal proteins that somehow unfold into an infectious shape that causes a chain reaction of misfolding among normal proteins. This growing mass of misshapen prions kills nervous tissue, cutting holes in the brain. BSE usually claims a human life within a year. But in cows, it undergoes a long incubation period.
""The fact that the infected prion is not present normally in meat really scientifically means we shouldn't have a concern about it,"" said Dennis Buege, professor of animal science at UW-Madison.
""There is much remaining to be learned about the BSE prion, and we need a convincing method of intercepting, neutralizing and degrading these prions when tissues are infected,"" said Schaefer.
Since BSE in cows and scrapies in sheep are both prion diseases, there have been uncertainties in the past as to what role sheep played in Great Britain's BSE cases.
However, Professor Dave Thomas, a UW-Madison sheep specialist, said he believes sheep were not a factor.
""There's very good evidence now that BSE in Europe was caused by cattle eating BSE-infected cattle and not because of scrapie-infected sheep getting into the food supply,"" Thomas said.
Meanwhile, the USDA has tightened restrictions on tissues where BSE is known to be concentrated, such as the brain and spinal cord. Also, cows that can not walk at the time of processing because they are too sick or injured to stand have been banned from the food supply.
""There are a lot of changes now in slaughter and processing, but mainly things that were already being done in the industry are now being formalized into rules,"" Buege said.
Buege also said there is a chance the case in Washington occurred is not from an existing strain.
""This type of disease occurs spontaneously in about one in a million people. Hopefully, this is a really rare incident. Great Britain had 180 cases and we've had one. I'm hoping the things we're doing are working-and that this one case will not be repeated,"" Buege said.
