Does this mean there is a disaster in the making for the Thai beef industry. Whether the disaster is inevitable or deserved is another matter. Legitimately upsetting It is not hard to understand why people get upset about mad cow disease. It now seems certain that the disease can spread to humans under certain poorly understood conditions. Victims, often only in their twenties and thirties, begin to waste away mentally and physically until they become completely immobile and mute .
Death follows shortly afterwards.
The agent of transmission, most likely a rogue protein known as a prion, is equally upsetting. Prions are invisible to blood and tissue tests so the only way the disease can be diagnosed with certainty is by examining a victim s brain after death. Prions are also impervious to cooking and radiation. Thus, if a local case of mad cow disease or, worse yet, a case of vCJD, is ever discovered, public panic could easily ensue . Unless, that is, government and health officials act swiftly to implement what has been learned from the British and European experience and, equally importantly, the media acts responsibly.