Mad Cow Disease: It’s Mad to Eat Meat

According to a 2006 report by the USDA inspector general, USDA slaughterhouse inspectors are still allowing many “downed cows”—who may be infected with mad cow disease—into the human food supply illegally.

Mad cow disease is one of the most frightening diseases of our generation. Also known as “bovine spongiform encephalopathy,” it is a member of a group of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. These diseases, which cause the brain to degenerate until it becomes “spongy” and lead to eventual death, are caused by misshapen proteins called “prions.”¹ Researchers have traced massive outbreaks of the disease on factory farms to the meat industry’s cost-cutting practice of mixing the brain tissue of dead farmed animals into the feed of other farmed animals.…

Any animal with a brain has the potential to become infected with a prion disease and could pass the disease on to humans who eat the animal’s flesh. Scientists have already identified mad cow disease variants in humans, fish, sheep, minks, cows, deer, and cats.^2,3,4 Although illegal in Japan and Europe, in the U.S. and Canada it remains common to include the blood, bone, and unwanted flesh of all types of farmed animals in the feed of chickens, turkeys, and pigs. Of all the animal flesh and bone meal that is processed into food for farmed animals, almost half is fed to chickens and turkeys, 13 percent is fed to pigs, and 10 percent is fed to cows.⁵

How Do People Get Mad Cow Disease?

When people eat infected animals, they can develop the human version of spongiform encephalopathy called “new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease” (nvCJD). This disease eats holes in the brain (which results in a spongy appearance), initially causing memory loss and erratic behavior. Over a period of months, victims gradually lose the ability to care for themselves or communicate, and they eventually die. There is evidence that a large number of Americans diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or dementia may in fact be victims of nvCJD.

Eating contaminated meat has caused more than 150 deaths worldwide. Thousands more are likely infected but do not know it yet, according to a study published in The Journal of Pathology, and it can take years for symptoms to develop.^6,7 Millions of cows developed the disease in Europe in the 1990s and were killed and their bodies burned—although burning does not destroy prions. Hunters in the U.S. and their families may have contracted the disease by eating infected deer they killed.⁸

What Is the U.S. Government Doing to Protect Americans From Mad Cow Disease?

The USDA, which is supposed to ensure the safety of the American food supply, has a long, disturbing history of protecting the profits of the wealthy meat, dairy, and egg industries instead of protecting consumers and animals. But the agency’s actions on the mad cow issue may be the most appalling dereliction of duty to date:

• “Downed cows” (those too sick or injured to walk) are considered the most likely to have mad cow disease. After years of stalling, the USDA finally announced in late 2003 that it would stop allowing these animals into the human food supply. However, a damning internal report released three years later found that USDA inspectors were still allowing many downed cows to be slaughtered for human consumption.⁹
• While Japan and England test every slaughtered cow for mad cow disease, the U.S. tests fewer than 1 percent of cows.^10,11 The USDA even refused to allow a slaughterhouse to do its own testing—perhaps fearful of what the slaughterhouse might find.¹²
• A 2006 audit found that top USDA officials tried to stop additional testing on a cow who was suspected of having mad cow disease because the agency feared that a positive test would cause economic harm to the beef industry. When the inspector general finally insisted that the cow be tested, the results showed that the cow was indeed infected with the disease.¹³

How to Protect Yourself

The American government is not following the World Health Organization recommendations for protecting Americans from mad cow disease. The only way to ensure that you won’t eat something that will cause you to develop a horrific, brain-rotting illness is to go vegetarian. By switching to a vegetarian diet, you will be protecting yourself from heart disease, cancer, and obesity. And you will save more than 100 animals a year.

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¹ World Health Organization, “Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy,” Nov. 2002
² Geoffrey Cowley, “Cannibals to Cows: The Path of a Deadly Disease,” Newsweek 3 Mar. 2001
³AllRefer.com, “Now Fish Too Can Suffer Version of Mad Cow Disease,”
⁴Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, “Mad Cow Disease and Cats,” 2006
⁵Denise Grady, “Mad Cow Quandary: Making Animal Feed,” The New York Times 6 Feb. 2004
⁶Associated Press, “Meatpacker Sparks Mad Cow Testing Fight,” 22 Mar. 2006
⁷Patricia Reaney, Reuters, “Human Mad Cow Disease Could Be Wider―UK Scientists,” 21 May 2004
⁸Sandra Blakeslee, “Brain Disease Rises in Deer, Scaring Hunters,” The New York Times 3 Sep. 2002
⁹Daniel Goldstein, “‘Downer Cows’ Entering Meat Supply, USDA Inspector General Says,” Bloomberg.com, 2 Feb. 2006
¹⁰Mark Reutter, “Federal Testing for Mad Cow Disease a Failure, Law Review Editors Say,” News Bureau, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 15 May 2006
¹¹Associated Press, “Testing for Mad Cow Disease to Be Cut,” The Washington Post 21 Jul. 2006
¹²Reuters, “Meatpacker Sues for Right to Do Mad Cow Tests,” MSNBC.com, 23 Mar. 2006
¹³Marc Kauffman, “Agency Fought Retesting of Infected Cow,” The Washington Post 3 Feb. 2006