The Wall Street Journal has an article about possible links between serious human diseases of the brain and nervous system and “mad cow disease.” Mad cow, or Bovine Spongiform Encelopathy, is a disease in which a protein behaves in a way similar to a virus. It copies itself over and over and over until normal tissues are damaged or destroyed, leading to dysfunction. BSE is often considered a zoonotic disease, as eating BSE-affected meat products can lead to a very similar disease process in humans.
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