One of the scariest things about the mad cow disease is that humans can get sick from it! First, the cows got this disease from sheep, and now we can get it to. In Europe there were more than 20 people who died from eating beef.  What can you do? Does every beef cause the disease? Should we stop eating beef? What do we eat instead?

WHAT IS THIS DISEASE? In 1980s several young people died of the strange disease that destroyed their brains. Doctors were surprised because they have seen disease like that in old people, but never in young people. They knew that the young people had a disease just like Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), This disease is very rare and always in old people. Because it started to attack young people, and that was new they gave it a new name new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (nvCJD),  Humans who get  nvCJD begin with mental  problems (they get depressed or are scared of everything and act  strange.) They also have problems with their senses, for example they cannot hear or see well.. Then they start having problems with balance and speech because they can control their muscles. Next they start losing their memory. Then they fall into coma which means that they are unconscious for along time. Finally they die because there is no cure.

WHY DOCTORS THINK THAT CJD IS RELATED TO BSE When they found the nvCJD, doctor had to find out how people got it. So, they looked in other diseases that attacked brain and had same characteristics. They were shocked when they noticed how this disease is related to BSE or Mad Cow Disease. To begin with, all of the young people who died  of nvCJD lived in areas that had problem with Mad Cow Disease. Scientists couldn't find anyone with nvCJD in areas that did not have the Mad Cow disease. Next, scientists look in the brain of people who died from nvCJD, They found prions, just like those they found in the brains of cows who had BSE. Also, they couldn't found any prions in the brains of old people who had the old CJD disease. Next, they did research and notice that it takes same time for the Mad Cow Disease  and nvCJD from the time that cow or person are infected to the time they die. Finally, they used lab animals to test if infected cow brain tissue will make them sick. The lab animals got disease just like nvCJD.

HOW CAN A PERSON GET DISEASE Person can get the nvCJD by eating infected parts of cow. But not all parts are dangerous. Person has to come in contact with nervous tissue, such as brain or nerves or spinal cord. That's because nerve cells have prions. Prion is not a virus. It is a protein that all mammals have. We don't know what prions do. In cows with BSE and people with nvCJD prions are shaped abnormally, not like they should be. If a person eats nervous tissue with abnormal prions. those prions will spread in the persons nerves. They will make normal prions become abnormal just by touching them. They will do that until all prions in the cell are abnormal.  Nerve cell dies and prions move to another cell until that one dies. They leave behind huge hole that make tissue look like a sponge. These holes start making brain and nerves not be able to work the way they should. The person will soon die.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? Many people in the world enjoy eating beef. But nobody wants to die from the horrible disease. Does this mean that we all need to stop eating beef? If everyone in the world stopped eating beef, what would people eat? Governments and scientists are working hard to keep us safe. Here is some things they are doing. 1. Many countries do not import beef from the countries in which they found Mad Cow Disease 2. Herds of cattle with BSE were destroyed. 3. many countries do not allow animal parts to be part of cow feed any more. 4. Herds of healthy cows are monitored 5. Some countries, like Japan, test every single slaughtered cow!!! (Many countries lag behind!!)