document: `` Mad cow '' disease , an enigmatic nervous disorder that has killed thousands of cattle in Britain , is causing trade friction in Europe and is threatening the $ 3.7-billion British beef industry . On Friday , West Germany joined France in a ban on British beef imports , citing health fears related to the mysterious ailment , whose technical name is bovine spongiform encephalopathy -LRB- BSE -RRB- . Concern that the disease can be transmitted to humans has made the subject Topic A in the pubs and press of Britain , and has put a serious crimp in domestic beef sales . Despite assurances from the British government that the beef is safe , consumers and some scientists remain skeptical . British officials complain that the French and German import ban is a result of economic , not health , concerns . The price of British beef is dropping in the wake of the `` mad cow '' scare . Therefore , British officials believe , France and West Germany imposed the bans to protect their domestic sales . `` It 's totally unjustified and illegal , '' said Patrick Barrow , spokesman for the Meat and Livestock Commission , a trade organization . France accounted for slightly more than half of Britain 's beef exports last year , buying 70,000 tons of beef worth $ 264 million . West Germany bought $ 50 million worth last year . Although other countries have recently placed some restrictions on British beef and cattle , the French and German moves were the strongest by far . The United States does not import British beef and recently rescinded permits for the importation of live cattle . British officials have been joined by European Community commissioners in protesting the French and Germany import ban . Mad cow disease has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 14,000 cows since it was first noticed in the mid-1980s . BSE-infected cows `` degenerate very quickly , '' said a spokeswoman from Britain 's Ministry of Agriculture . The cows become aggressive and then wobbly-legged before dying . No one is certain what causes the disease , which affects the cow 's brain . But the prime suspect is tainted cow feed . Some experts believe that cattle contracted the disease as a result of eating food contaminated with the remains of sheep infected with a BSE-like disease called scrapie . Although government and industry officials have been concerned for some time , mad cow disease did not become a household word until recently . On May 11 , the Ministry of Agriculture revealed that a Siamese cat had died from a disease identical to BSE . The press went wild with the story , suggesting , in boldface , that if cats can get it , people can too . Panic ensued . `` BSE has been around for six or seven years , '' said David Lewis of the Meat and Livestock Commission . `` And until the cat , it had n't been brought into the home . '' Beef sales dropped , with surveys showing that about a quarter of British households had stopped eating it . Two thousand schools dropped beef from their menus . The government and meat industry fought back . Some regulations were enacted to fight the disease , but more overt was the publicity campaign : Princess Anne said her family was still eating British beef .
extractive_keyphrases: mad cow disease trade friction bovine spongiform encephalopathy germany import ban british beef imports health fears
abstractive_keyphrases: bse-infected cows