A frightening new disease that is caused by the same virus that causes mad cow disease, this disease is calledbovine encephalitis. The reason I don’t specify what the virus is is because scientists still don’t know what it is.
There are many theories about what kind of virus it is, and the most common of them is that it is a prion – a bizarre component of a protein that can change its shape, then it is a lifeless grain of sand, then it suddenly becomes a living, active and deadly substance. But no one really knows what it is. Scientists don’t even know how cows get the virus. Some say that cows get infected from sheep that have a similar disease, others do not agree with this opinion. The only thing about which there is no dispute is how bovine encephalitis is transmitted. This disease is characteristic of the UK because, in natural conditions, cattle graze and eat only grass and leaves, and farm animals are fed with crushed pieces of other animals, among them comes across the brain in which this virus lives. Thus, this disease is spreading. This disease has yet to be cured. It kills cows and can be fatal to other animals such as cats, minks, and even deer fed contaminated beef. People have a similar disease called Cretzvelt-Jakob disease (CJD). There was a lot of controversy and debate about whether this disease is the same as bovine encephalitis and whether people can get sick by eating infected cow meat. Ten years after bovine encephalitis was discovered in 1986, British government officials said that humans cannot contract the disease and that CJD is a completely different disease – so beef can be safely eaten. As a precaution, they ended up declaring that the brain, some of the glands, and nerve ganglions that run through the spine were still not to be eaten. Prior to this, this kind of meat was used for cooking burgers и pies. Between 1986 and 1996, at least 160000 British cows were found to have bovine encephalitis. These animals were destroyed, and the meat was not used for food. However, one scientist believes that more than 1.5 million head of cattle were infected, but the disease did not show symptoms. Even UK government data show that for every cow known to be sick, there are two cows known to have no known disease. And the meat of all these infected cows was used for food. In March 1996, the UK government was forced to make a confession. It stated that it is likely that humans can contract the disease from cows. This was a fatal mistake because millions of people ate contaminated meat. There was also a four-year period after which food manufacturers were banned from using brain и nerves, while these highly infected pieces of meat were regularly eaten. Even after the government admitted its mistake, it still insists that now it can be said with full responsibility that all dangerous parts of the meat are removed and therefore, it is quite safe to eat beef. But in a taped telephone conversation, the chairman of the veterinary service of the Meat Control Commission, the national organization responsible for the sale of red meat, admitted that bovine encephalitis virus is found in all types of meat, even lean steaks. This virus can be contained in small doses, but no one can say with certainty what the consequences of eating a small dose of this virus with meat will be. All we know is that it takes ten to thirty years for the symptoms of bovine encephalitis, or CJD, to appear in humans, and these diseases are always fatal within a year. You will be pleased to hear that I do not know of a single case of anyone dying from carrot poisoning.