In article >,
Dennis G. > wrote:

> As long as feed is not contaminated by MBM(meat/blood meal) from animals with
> BSE, there is no reason to fear the spread of the disease. It is only vectored
> by direct transmission of the infectious prion from an infected animal to
> another infected animal through eating.

After the mad cow fright in England, the US Government enacted
restrictions against feeding beef protein products back to cattle. But
some ranchers have apparently been scoffing at the rules. One of the
federal auditing agencies (CBO?) found a significant non-compliance
rate. And, if I remember correctly, current US laws do not ban the
adding of cow blood products to cattle feeds. Nor do they ban the
feeding of beef byproducts to chickens and pigs, which can be rendered
and fed back to cattle. The article that I linked in my original post
mentions research which suggests that prions can be passed through one
species without causing disease, and into another species which becomes
ill.

--
Julian Vrieslander