Rethinking Beef
The Straight Dope
"I got involved with this issue through my work fighting alongside farmers and consumers who were opposed to Monsanto's genetically-engineered cow hormone (rBGH), which is injected into cows to force them to produce more milk. The interesting thing is that in order to get more milk out of these cows you have to give them fat and protein supplements, and it was discovered in the early '90s that the cheapest source of fat and protein supplements for dairy cows in Wisconsin was dairy cows. In other words, the meat unfit for human consumption-the stuff that doesn't make it onto the dinner plate-being rendered and fed back to dairy cows.
"This practice had been banned in Britain because it was proven that this is how Mad Cow Disease (MCD) was spread. And there was a great deal of concern, even half a decade ago, that this disease could move from the "mad cows" of Britain into people, which it now has. So it was looking into a modern technological wonder, the genetically-engineered Bovine Growth Hormone, which first drew my attention to the risks of this disease in the U.S."
Molecular Anatomy of a Killer
Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, a fatal brain illness, has a form which is similar to mad cow disease. The agent behind it is widely believed to be a protien, called a prion, whose normal function has been altered.
Diseased prions induce healthy prion proteins to change their shape, and clusters of disease build, leaving holes in the brain. Scientists believe another, separate protein is involved in the conversion of normal proteins into abnormal form.
