What peaked as a minor British epidemic in 1992 and 1993 has more recently spread first to France, and now to Germany.
BSE is popularly known as mad cow disease. CJD is the acronym for the human form of BSE, often fatal especially to young people. It is a rapidly debilitating disease of the brain.
As the Times (London) explained, "Over the past month [October] it has belatedly dawned on France that people have long been eating meat from cattle infected with BSE." Now in late November, BSE has been confirmed in two German cows with one possible case of CJD, the first human victim in the Federal Republic.
This disturbing disease has been a political football in Western Europe as, until fairly recently, British beef was basically banned on the European Continent. Now public pressure is being brought in Britain to ban French beef.
Sources: The Daily Mail , November 25, 2000; Times (London), November 10 and 21, 2000.
