BOVINESPONGIFORMENCEPHALOPATHY

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, about 30 months to 8 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of four to five years, all breeds being equally susceptible. In the United Kingdom, the country worst affected, more than 180,000 cattle have been infected and 4.4 million slaughtered during the eradication program.

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bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Noun

(abbreviated as BSE)
  1. A fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle, which is transmissible to humans through misshaped prion proteins, caused by eating infected tissues.
    The outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) have limited some traditional uses of cattle for food, for example the eating of brains or spinal cords.


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: bovine spongiform encephalopathy
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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