Usage of animal products unfit for humans in animal feed is not new, and has proven to be an effective way of feeding livestock on a budget. However in the 1980s, this feeding method used in England became an enormous threat to public health. Meat and bone meal (MBM) is ground and processed proteins of animals such as sheep, horses, cows, and pigs, that was fed back to those same animals-particularly dairy cows.
"The incorporation of rendered meat and bone meal into animal feed creates a number of risks related to the transmission, recycling and amplification of pathogens." (Cleeland) In 1986, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy was identified in Sussex, England. Soon, more cases around the UK had been found. The cause at first was unknown. It was primarily linked to scrapie, as it is a TSE endemic to England. When more cases arose later in the year, the source of infection was questioned.
According to a committee chaired by Gabriel Horn, the source of the epidemic was almost certainly MBM.
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The evidence is very strong that the spread of BSE to the point at which it became an epidemic arose through the use of meat and bone meal (MBM) in cattle feed. If transmission from mother to calf, contamination of pastures and/or the use of veterinary preparations played a part in the transmission of BSE, their effects are likely to have been small.
....The practice of including MBM in the diet of calves for most of the first twelve weeks of their lives began in the mid 1970s in the UK, but does not appear to have been common in continental Europe and the USA. This practice raises the question of whether there is a sensitive period of susceptibility: that young calves are more susceptible than adult cattle to the infective agent. This question needs to be addressed experimentally. (Horn)
By 1989 BSE had grown into one of the most serious threats the UK has seen to their agriculture. The British Chief Medical Officer's view of the link between BSE and CJD had been a cause of serious concern within the United Kingdom's government; a belief polar opposite of what their government assumed for a decade. Only days later, several major fast food restaurant chains shut down in England, and restaurants like Wendy's, McDonald's, and Burger King stopped serving all British beef.
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