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Unclean Butchering Practices Blamed for Human 'Mad Cow' Disease
By Tom Rivers, Voice of America In Britain, a long-awaited report into the first cluster of human victims of mad cow disease concludes that improper slaughtering and butchering practices were responsible for the transmission. The mystery surrounding the picturesque English village of Queniborough has now been solved. Five young adults from the village died within a few months of each other in 1998. All of them came down with the human form of mad cow disease, known as New Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, CJD. Since then, government medical researchers have examined anything that the victims might have had in common: from drinking from the same water supply, to eating the same school dinners. After searching all possibilities, report co-author Philip Monk says the team came to the conclusion that all five died from the same infected beef source some time in the 1980s. "We therefore developed the hypothesis that the people who had developed variant-CJD were exposed through the consumption of beef carcass meat which had been purchased from butchers where there was a risk of cross-contamination with bovine brain material during the boning, jointing and cutting processes in those butcher's premises where heads were split to remove the brain," said Mr. Monk. While this particular butchering practice - removing the cow's brain in the butcher shop -- is not performed here anymore, the findings of how the disease is transmitted are directly relevant to other fields. In the medical field for instance, it raises a number of questions: Should surgical instruments be used again? Can they be sterilized? Precisely how much of the disease agent is required for transmission? For people like Arthur Bayless, who lost his 24-year-old daughter to the disease, the release of the report brought back many raw memories, but he hopes that with more knowledge, more can be done to help others who are stricken with the disease in the coming years. "We do understand that it is for the greater good. You know, this might lead on to further research," said Mr. Bayless. "It might help future victims, or potential victims. So, that is why we participated." So far, the death toll in Britain from CJD stands at just under 100. But given the long incubation period of the disease, the fear is that the human form of mad cow disease will sadly be with us for many more years to come.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
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