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Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 16:58:29 -0500
Subject: _Business Week_ on UK Mad Cow Disease Epidemic

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Business Week: December 25, 1995
Department: News: Analysis & Commentary: DISEASES
MAD COWS AND ENGLISHMEN
Worries over a deadly ailment butcher British beef sales
=0D
It's tough being a beef eater in Britain. TV images of demented,
wobbly-legged cattle--victims of a lethal illness dubbed mad-cow
disease--have invaded living rooms since 1986. But government officials
insisted that the disease was no threat to humans. With such assurances, =
beef
remained on most dinner tables, and the disease returned to the back burn=
er
of Britain's concerns.
   Not anymore. Nine years after scientists first identified bovine
spongiform encephalopathy, public fears that the mysterious BSE agent mig=
ht
be infecting humans have reached a fever pitch. Two British teenagers
died--in April and August--of a brain-devouring ailment eerily similar to=

BSE. Called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, this nasty human malady has been
around for decades: It killed choreographer George Balanchine in 1983. Bu=
t it
normally afflicts only tiny numbers of middle-aged and elderly people. In=

Britain, however, CJD fatalities not only are occurring among the young, =
but
have doubled since 1985, to 55 cases last year.
NO MORE LIVER. Such scary statistics have raised fears that BSE can pass =
from
cattle to humans. The government already bans the use in foodstuffs of co=
w
brains and certain other organs, in which BSE is most apt to lurk. Now, s=
ome
top British scientists and doctors want the ban extended to additional
organs. European farmers are asking their governments to halt imports of
British beef. And thousands of English schools have removed beef from lun=
ch
menus. Meat sales in shops are off by 15%, and auction prices for cattle =
have
dropped through the slaughterhouse floor.
   Other countries, including the U.S., share Britain's concerns. ``We ne=
ed
to monitor this very carefully,'' says Robert Howard, a spokesman for the=

U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. The big fear: an outbreak
among currently BSE-free U.S. cows.
   There is no evidence that BSE can make the jump from cow to human. Eve=
n
so, former British government health-care adviser Dr. Bernard Tomlinson
recently revealed that he no longer eats liver. Nor does he eat hamburger=
s or
meat pies--which could include ground-up brains and other organs. These p=
arts
of the carcass, scientists say, may harbor the infectious agent--believed=
 to
be a rogue protein called a prion. Such proteins, which contain no DNA bu=
t
nevertheless seem to propagate in organs and brains, are not deactivated =
by
cooking. Worse, there are no vaccines or cures for the diseases they caus=
e.
   This much is known about the British epidemic: Cattle were probably
afflicted after being fed ground sheep carcasses infected with scrapie, a=

sheep disease similar to BSE. In 1988, after cows started dying, the
government banned the use of cattle and sheep in animal feed and ordered =
the
slaughter of any beast with BSE symptoms. But seven years and 150,000 BSE=

cases later, 300 cows a week are coming down with the disease. Most
perplexing: Cattle born after 1988, which presumably didn't eat infected
feed, have contracted the disease.
BUM STEER. The European Union also has banned the feeding of cow and shee=
p
carcasses to animals. But the U.S. has not done so, complains Richard F.
Marsh, a University of Wisconsin animal-health professor, despite many ca=
ses
of sheep scrapie. ``This is a practice we've got to stop,'' he says.
   The seeming increase in CJD may result from better reporting of cases.=
 But
Sheila Gore, a biostatistician at Britain's Medical Research Council, say=
s
there's only a 1-in-10,000 chance that the four farmers who have died in =
the
past three years represent a normal incidence of the disease. More worris=
ome
are the deaths of the two teenagers. There have been only four other reco=
rded
cases of CJD among teens in Europe and the U.S. Still, given the long
incubation period for the disease, ``it's going to be many years before w=
e
know if human health has been compromised,'' says Dr. Will Patterson, a
British public-health specialist.
   For Britain, the big question is whether to ban human consumption of a=
ll
beef brains and other organs--and risk slaughtering Britain's beef indust=
ry.
The more Britons swear off beef, the less relevant such a ban becomes.
=0D


=0D


STAMPEDE
=0D

1986 The first cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), nicknamed=

mad-cow disease, show up on British farms
=0D

1988 Britain begins slaughtering, then incinerating diseased cattle
=0D

1990 To quell fears, then-Agricultural Minister John Gummer has his daugh=
ter
eat a hamburger on TV
=0D

NOVEMBER, 1995 Alarm spreads with a report that four farmers died from a
disease similar to BSE
=0D

DECEMBER, 1995 1,000 schools remove beef from lunch menus
=0D

By Heidi Dawley in London, with John Carey in Washington
=0D
Copyright 1995 The McGraw-Hill Companies All rights reserved. Any use is
subject to (1) terms and conditions of this service and (2) rules stated
under ``Read This First'' in the ``About Business Week'' area.
=0D


=0D
Transmitted: 12/14/95 7:51 PM (B3456129)

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