When was mad cow disease discovered and by who?

[ploddypop]

does anyone happen to know when mad cow disease was discovered or who by. I have another assignment on diseases and thought that some of you might be able to help. If you can I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
Emily

[terambulan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_cow_disease

I was aware of a bovine problem similar to BSE in 1980s when a local farmer bought steer calves at our cattle market in UK. At aged 9months the freisians seemed to have arthritus (vets prognosis). Some of them keeled over and could not remain standing. Within the month they were 'put down'.

Although the steers were purchased in UK it was later discovered that these calves had been imported from Holland for the British markets.

When the disease was full blown in UK and stocks were shot & burned in 2000 approx, it was reported in the Farmers Weekly that the European stock were only immunised!

It was a devastating blow to UK farmers to lose their stock and livlihoods. They have yet to recover from the experience.

Please Google Farmers Weekly or Ministry of Agriculture for more factual details.

[ploddypop]

Thank you for your answer. the link you provided has given me a lot of info. Thanks again

[Noweia]

The DEFRA website has a nice section on BSE:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/Bse/index.html

Also the Food Standards Agency, as there are now many controls in place to prevent BSE spreadong once more:

http://www.food.gov.uk/bse/

If you feel like brancing out you can also look up Scrapie (another Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy, or TSE) in sheep, here:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/bse/othertses/ index.html

I've heard of a cat that got a TSE, that's also mentioned in the link above.

And finally Chronic Wasting Disease in deer, a very scary disease that's currently present in the US but doesn't seem to have arrived here yet.

If you need any explanations of terms used in the websites above let me know and I'll try and clarify!