Last time I discussed Mad Cow Disease and a similarly fatal human condition called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.  These "spongiform" diseases destroy neurons, riddling the brain with tiny holes until it resembles a sponge.  They're caused by newly discovered infective agents--prions--which aren't always destroyed by usual sterilization methods involving heat.  Spongy brain diseases can have very long latency periods, during which they are currently undetectable.  Technically called "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy," Mad Cow Disease has killed at least 180,000 cows in England, and spread rapidly there through cow cannibalism--the practice of "rendering" dead cows into protein feed supplements and then feeding this stuff back to other cows.  So far, well over 50 cases of devastating "new variant" CJD have been definitively linked to the human victims' consumption of infected meat, and human fatalities from spongiform disease in England have been increasing each year.
         Unfortunately, the British government treated Mad Cow Disease more as a public relations than as a public health problem, until it finally admitted in 1996 that new variant CJD stemmed from meat eating.  Since then, English officials have practiced "damage control" to protect the remains of their devastated beef industry, while many Britons anxiously wonder if they're now harboring a deadly disease that can remain dormant in humans for up to 30 years or more.
         A month after the British admission grabbed headlines, an April 1996 episode of the Oprah Winfrey show focused on Mad Cow Disease.  Along with representatives from the meat industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), vegetarian activist and former Montana cattle rancher Howard Lyman appeared.  (I had first learned of Mad Cow Disease from Lyman when he spoke in Arcata in the early 90s.)  Seeking dramatic impact, Lyman stated on the Oprah show that spongy brain disease would "make AIDS look like the common cold."  He described how rendering practices enabled feeding cows back to cows, and the meat industry official admitted that "there is a limited amount of that done in the United States."  The audience groaned.  Oprah said "this has just stopped me cold from eating another burger."
         The price of meat immediately plummeted on commodity exchanges, and shortly thereafter Winfrey and Lyman were sued by the Texas Cattlemen under a "food disparagement law" that had just been enacted in Texas the previous year.  Oprah's editors had indeed cut the film to produce a sensationalistic result, but this is standard procedure in television.  The Texas law requires that defendants made "knowingly false statements" for conviction to occur.  Oprah and Lyman hadn't, and were acquitted.  The cattlemen appealed, but the not-guilty verdict was upheld by a Federal Court of Appeals just last February--nearly four years later.
         The Oprah affair exemplifies a "SLAPP" suit--a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation.  Large corporations and other moneyed interests have armies of lawyers that can seriously harass activists by filing lawsuits against them.  Usually not big names like Oprah, the activists may often prevail in court but in the meantime have their lives ruined by expensive and lengthy litigation--effectively discouraging future activism while the powerful write off legal salaries as a business expense.  So much for the First Amendment...
         With Mad Cow Disease, we may now be repeating English mistakes here in the U.S.  Expensive and sophisticated public relations firms are working hard to shape our perceptions.  Unfortunately, the USDA's mission includes not just regulating the meat industry, but also promoting its products.  This inherent conflict of interest is accompanied by the usual conflicts of interest resulting from a "revolving door" of leadership between government agencies and major corporations generally.  In addition to meat, animals are used to make cosmetics, pet food, drugs, and many other products; vast monies are involved.  The USDA itself acknowledges that a single identified case of Mad Cow Disease in the U.S. would deal a "severe blow" to our meat industry.  Officials are quick to say that the disease doesn't exist here, but the motivation to suppress bad news may be overwhelming when both big bucks and also the livelihoods of regular people are at stake.
         Mad Cow Disease has now spread throughout Europe, though certainly in lower numbers than in England.  It's steadily increasing in France, and in 1999 three French cases of new variant CJD in humans were linked to infected meat.  In addition to partial restrictions on U.S. rendering practices enacted in 1997, the USDA now has many restrictions on meat imports from Europe; complex rules vary for each country.  Some animal body parts are OK, others aren't.  Brains and spinal cords definitely aren't.  Government scientists think hearts and livers may be infective, because "stun guns" used in slaughtering can drive "emboli" of brain tissue into these organs.  A brief study of anatomy reveals that muscle tissue (meat) is loaded with nervous tissue on the microscopic level--nerve cells interface with muscle fibers so the brain can control body movements.
         Government bureaucrats are working hard, spending our tax dollars to protect the meat industry.  Perhaps they also thereby protect human health, but why can't public health officials recommend significant cutbacks in meat consumption?  Spongy brain disease is a possible consequence of a meat-centered diet, but heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer, and osteoporosis are also enormous and better known health tragedies often caused by rich foods.  Why can't government health officials recommend vegetarian diets as a healthy option?  In words immortalized by the Watergate affair, just "follow the money."
         Some funeral workers, pathologists, and medical lab technicians are understandably worried about CJD, because the brain and other nervous tissues can be dangerously infective.  They may also be concerned about bodies of people who died with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease or an "atypical" dementia:  a 1989 Yale University study showed that 6 of 46 cases (13%) diagnosed by doctors as Alzheimer's were actually proven to be CJD upon autopsy, and several other studies confirm that CJD is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's.  One researcher describes CJD symptoms as "Alzheimer's in fast-forward."  Underlying pathologies are similar:  Alzheimer's patients can have spongy brain deterioration, and people with CJD often have the same brain deposits of "plaque" proteins that characterize Alzheimer's.  Nobel Prize winning researcher Carleton Gajdusek--a brilliant and energetic leader in solving the mystery of the spongiform disease "kuru" in New Guinea--has estimated that 1% of clients in Alzheimer's clinics actually have CJD.  Stanley Prusiner (who first proposed the prion theory and who received a 1997 Nobel Prize for his work in prion disease) speculates that Alzheimer's Disease may also be caused by prions.
         Waiting for a preponderance of evidence, scientists are conservative in their pronouncements.  Still, I wonder:  Could Mad Cow Disease, or a related disease in pigs, already be here?  Could people already be dying of spongy brain disease in much greater numbers than we suspect?  Could there be a connection?
         Unlike scientists in public life, we can wisely act to be "on the safe side."  Why wait 20 years for more research, when the preponderance of evidence already shows that rich foods are killing us?  Often, the only reason not to improve our diet now is simply force of habit.  Mad Cow Disease is just one of many serious problems stemming from the industrialization of our food supply.  Confining thousands of animals tightly in a single location, loading them up with hormones and antibiotics, and feeding them bizarre diets God never meant them to digest--diets designed with only weight gain and profit in mind--it's not surprising if such ghastly practices return to haunt us.  Cutting back on meat or eating meat only from small scale local producers, going vegetarian, and eating more whole grains, beans, and locally grown vegetables are practices that make good plain sense.
 
 
 

        Here's a link back to my first article on this topic:  Mad Cows and Spongy Brains.  There's more on vegetarian diets in my article Heroes of Health, and more on agricultural practices in Food For Thought.
        The Official Mad Cow Disease Home Page has links to thousands of articles and press releases; an astounding resource!
        The Prion Diseases is a technical article by Stanley Prusiner that was in the January 1995 issue of Scientific American.
        Here is Howard Lyman's website, which includes a partical transcript of the Oprah show.  Here's an excerpt from Lyman's book, Mad Cowboy.
        Here are the websites for the USDA and the FDA.
        CJD Voice offers on-line support and information regarding the disease.
        Here's the Blood Recall/CJD site, with support and information for those who may have received contaminated blood products.
        Here's a USDA statement on Chronic Wasting Disease of Deer and Elk.
        The Meat Inspector's Union has opinions about food safety and their jobs; it may be hard to separate these issues when reviewing their information.
        The University of Illinois has a lot of information about Mad Cow Disease.
        The International Center for Technology Assessment has a lot to say about transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, rendering practices, and food safety.
        Good luck in interpreting the equivocal language of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service.
        Here's a USDA import alert about various animal parts from various countries.  It gets pretty complicated; glad we're paying them to take care of all this for us!  Here's more of the same.
        Finally here's a news report about currently changing meat inspection regulations, and a follow-up about U.S. congressional oversight into these matters.  The second report includes an address for people to write about changing meat inspection procedures.