document: `` Mad cow disease '' has killed 10,000 cattle , restricted the export market for Britain 's cattle industry and raised fears about the safety of eating beef . The government insists that the disease poses only a remote risk to human health , but scientists still are n't certain what causes the disease or how it is transmitted . `` I think everyone agrees that the risks are low , '' says Martin Raff , a neurobiologist at University College , London . `` But they certainly are not zero . I have not changed my eating habits , but I certainly do wonder . '' Mad cow disease , or bovine spongiform encephalopathy , or BSE , was diagnosed only in 1986 . The symptoms are very much like scrapie , a sheep disease which has been in Britain since the 1700s . The incurable disease eats holes in the brains of its victims ; in late stages a sick animal may act skittish or stagger drunkenly . The suspicion is that the disease was transmitted through cattle feed , which used to contain sheep by-products as a protein supplement . The government banned the use of sheep offal in cattle feed in June , 1988 , and later banned the use of cattle brain , spleen , thymus , intestines and spinal cord in food for humans . Sheep offal is still used in pig and poultry feed . In March , the government announced that it would pay farmers 100 % of market value or average market price , whichever is less , for each animal diagnosed with BSE . `` I think it is a recognition -- not just of pressure from farmers -- but that the public would feel more confident that no BSE-infected animal would ever be likely to go anywhere near the food chain if there was 100 % compensation , '' said Sir Simon Gourlay , president of the National Farmers Union . The disease struck one of his own cows , Gourlay said . `` In the course of 24 hours , the animal went from being ostensibly quite normal to very vicious and totally disoriented . '' As of Feb. 9 , the Ministry of Agriculture , Fisheries and Food said that 9,998 cattle have been destroyed after being diagnosed with BSE . The government has paid $ 6.1 million in compensation , and is budgeting $ 16 million for 1990 . Ireland 's Department of Agriculture and Food said about 20 cases have been confirmed there , all of them near the border with the British province of Northern Ireland . Because of the disease , the U.S. Department of Agriculture 's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in July banned imports of cattle , embryos and bull semen from Britain , said Margaret Webb , a USDA spokeswoman in Washington . Similar embargoes have been imposed by Australia , Finland , Israel , Sweden , West Germany and New Zealand , according to the Agriculture Ministry , and the European Community has proposed a ban on exports of British cattle older than 6 months . David Maclean , a junior agriculture minister , has complained of `` BSE hysteria '' in the media and has insisted that the risk of the disease passing to humans is `` remote . '' The government has committed $ 19 million to finding the cause of the disease . A commission chaired by Sir Richard Southwood , a professor at Oxford University , reported last year that the cause of BSE `` is quite unlike any bacteria or known viruses . '' The report said the disease is impossible to detect in apparently healthy animals because it does not prompt the immune system to produce antibodies . The Southwood report said it is `` most unlikely '' that the disease poses a threat to humans . But the report added : `` If our assessments of these likelihoods are incorrect , the implications would be extremely serious . '' There is a human variant of spongiform encephalopathy , known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease . About two dozen cases were reported in Britain last year . Another form , known as kuru , had been found in cannibals in New Guinea . According to a report in the British Medical Journal , the incidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is no higher in Britain than it is in countries free of scrapie . `` It is urgent that the same reassurance can be given about the lack of effect of BSE on human health , '' a consultative committee reported to the Agriculture Ministry . The committee 's report , released early this year , said it is only a `` shrewd guess '' that BSE is transmitted through sheep offal in cattle feed .
extractive_keyphrases: mad cow disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy bse sheep disease cattle feed british cattle exports imports ban