There are two new diseases in a growing line to plague humankind. Bovine Spongiform Encenphalopathy and its human form, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, better known as mad cow disease, are new kinds of diseases that appear to be unstoppable. Mad Cow disease is caused by a mutated chain of proteins in a strand of DNA. Because it is neither a virus nor a bacterium, the protein chain has been named a prion. What happens is still unknown, but the theory is that an animal ingests a mutated prion, and once inside, it attacks other strands of DNA, mutating them into like prions. The effect is a change in the physiological make up of tissues in the animal. The most significant side effect is the "sponging" of the brain and tonsil tissues. Essentially, the brain of an affected animal turns into a sponge-like piece of matter, filled with holes which kills the animal. Due to the lack of information and action on the part of the European Union, Mad Cow disease is now a wide spread epidemic that is destroying their economy and people.
             To emphasize the infancy of BSE, it is important to understand a little of its history. It is believed that the first cattle were infected in the late 1970's in Great Britain, but the first reported cases of BSE were in September 1985; that would make the disease less than seven years old. Cattle ranchers noticed a few cattle showing signs of a sheep disease known as Scrapie. It is called Scrapie because the infected sheep scrape at their heads with their hooves or against an object, like a fence, until they scrape the skin away, eventually bleeding to death. The cattle were quarantined and kept from scraping. While in quarantine, the cattle started showing other non-Scrapie symptoms. They seemed to lose coordination. The cattle started to twitch and jerk about uncontrollably. It became apparent to health officials that this was not Scrapie but something different. The European Union ...