BSE: Britain’s Deadly Disease Scandal

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The scariest aspect of this whole thing is that the Daily Mirror got something right

“Politicians acting like they know more than scientists” So true even today.

My grandmother passed away from the human variant CJD in 2008. They said it can lie dormant in the human brain for decades until a stroke or something triggers it. In a matter of weeks she went from her normal self to not knowing anyone in the family at all and then passing away. Her brother who had been dying from cancer for nearly a year and he held out another week "to give the family time to bury my sister before I go to see her again"....his words.

I always remember that idiot feeding his daughter a burger on the news. It stuck in my mind and resurfaces everytime someone suggests that the government has our best interests at heart.

During the mid 1990's I was stationed in Italy as a member of the US Navy. One weekend in 1996 I remember going to the commissary with some friends to get steaks only to find the whole meat section cleared out with a sign that said that British beef would no longer be sold and they were trying to find suppliers in Germany. Thinking nothing of it we went back to the ship and saw the news story about Mad Cow on Sky. We watched in horror as the cows shook and fell over, a friend said "if anything happens to my daughter..." Ten years later, back in the United States and a civilian, I went to donate blood only to be told I couldn't because I had been stationed in Europe during the mid-1990's. When I asked why I was told, "Mad Cow disease." That was fifteen years ago, and 25 years since I last ate British beef, but everyday I wonder if there is a time bomb in my brain.

My uncle worked for scottish beef during "mad cow". said he spent his time going from farm to farm telling farmers to kill cow. Described himself as the saddam hussain of cows

My grandfather died of mad cow disease, it wasn’t diagnosed until his brain was being studied (he donated his body to science) never got to meet him but from stories he seems like he was a great guy ❤

I would love a Chernobyl style series about the BSE scandal

As a microbiologist CJD and prion diseases are one of the things that terrify me most.

"A second pandemic is likely just around the corner..." 2020: Hold my beef.

Maybe the real plague was the politicians we made along the way. <3

Ah, vCJD. Some years ago a young chap was admitted to one of the nursing homes I visited as a local GP - the tragedy that nobody considers is the sufferers don't just die horribly, or indeed their families have to watch it. It's that being a prion disease it affects all tissues, can't be treated and can't be sterilised either! The result is the sufferer gets to be left to fester: Nursing staff understandably concerned over too much contact, blood or other tests can't be done for fear of spread via labs... I spent a lot of time just listening; to him, his family, his nurses - nothing else I could do. Bad enough for the few people who were infected and those who had to deal with it - imagine if 100's of thousands, maybe even millions had been infected! To this day I have no idea how we got off so lightly... assuming we did.

I remember growing up when this all was happening. Kids today are told that they can't go to McDonald's because there's food at home. As a kid, we were told we couldn't go to McDonald's because we could get mad cow disease. 😔

A couple other facts about prions illnesses (TSEs): you can randomly develop them. The tribe he’s talking about in New Ginea (the Fore.) got it because they practiced cannibalism and someone in their tribe randomly developed it. There is only a single non domesticated species known to have developed and maintained the illness in the wild: deer. All other recorded cases are due to human intervention or in domesticated species (ie, scrapie and bse.). M129v is a mutation that provides partial protection from the illness, but not complete protection, but it is fairly common especially in European populations. G127v provides complete protection, but is basically only found in the Fore. M129v is also not found in those of East Asian and pacific decent, but they have their own mutation that also provides protection but via a different mechanism. You also can have a prion illness for YEARS and, in fact, the reason it spread amongst the Fore is that you can have it for a very long time without manifesting any symptoms. Especially if you have the m129v mutation. But once you start showing symptoms, you’ll generally be dead in 6 months. Dementia and the related family of illnesses are also thought to be prion illnesses. And, bc a couple people were saying this down in the comments: simon is correct, healthy brains do have prions. The PRNP gene produces the PrP in all healthy mammals. PrP literally stands for PRion Protein. The misfolded and healthy versions, confusingly, have the same name (no like SO confusingly. The terminology for TSEs confused the hell out of me when I first started doing my masters thesis on the subject.).

At the time I had a client who’s husband was a cattle farmer. He had refused to feed his cattle the feed containing animal protein as “it didn’t seem right to feed a herbivore animal byproducts.” He was, of course, correct. This didn’t stop him loosing millions due to the greed of the government, feed manufacturers and other, less scrupulous farmers who only thought about the money to be made!

I just got a “Beef: It’s What’s For Dinner” ad for this video. Bad timing.

Don't practice cannibalism or feed meat to herbivores. Yeh, we needed to relearn the obvious. Growing up in Lincolnshire a heavily agricultural area, I remember seeing piles of corpses - a fairly grim sight.

My nan died of CJD in 2013, she fell sick in mid 2011 and lay in a bed for the rest of her life from 2011-2013. She couldn’t move just sometimes make a noise. It’s was hard to see

Britain during this time: "Reject science, beef is good."