Infectious Disease Compendium

Mad Cow Disease

Microbiology

A prion. AKA Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Epidemiologic Risks

Eating infected neuro tissue of cows; of the 4 million infected cows consumed in Britain, there were about 145 cases of diseases in humans. I'd worry more about CAD with that Whopper® you are eating if I were you.

Syndromes

A variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Treatment

None. Supportive.

Notes

I know this great joke, e-mail if you want to know it.

Cooking does not inactivate the protein.

Probably the result of feeding sheep parts, which have scrapie, to cows.