What type of microbe causes mad cow disease?

and What the most common practices are there to contribute to contamination; how to prevent food borne illnesses?

prion;
not a microbe...it's merely a protein

Infection route...Eating infected nervous system tissue.

How to prevent....don't eat beef.

Prions

Eating meat from an animal with the disease.

Wash your hands very well before and after handling raw meat and veggies, and the food you are preparing really well. Don't use the same utensil for more than one dish you are preparing if some of it is raw. Don't use the same utensil when handling cooked and uncooked food.

According to Dr. Dan Grooms, DVM and Veterinary Extension Specialist at Michigan State University,

mad cow disease (BSE) is different than most diseases that the general public is familiar with. It is not believed to be caused by a bacteria, virus, parasite, fungus, toxin or chemical. Currently, the most accepted theory is that mad cow disease is caused by a modified form of a normal cell surface component known as a "prion protein".


If eaten, these modified prion proteins can accumulate in the brain and then subsequently cause normal prion proteins to change to the modified form. These modified proteins continue to accumulate in the brain to the point where they damage brain cells, eventually leading to neurological disease and death. Why or how this substance changes to become disease-producing is still unknown.


The primary place that normal prion proteins are found is in neurological tissue including the brain and spinal cord. In cows infected with mad cow disease, this is where the abnormal prions also accumulate. Thus the major way the disease would be spread from one cow to another (or humans) would be from eating the brains or spinal cord of an infected cow where the abnormal prion protein has accumulated.

well its a bacteria, the milk from the infected cow can contaminate, there are three things you need to remember to avoid food borne illness 1) peel if it's raw, 2) sterilize like fresh milk need to be pasteurized, or at least heat it at 60 degrees celsius, 3) cook the food
if youre not sure about the cleanliness of the food, dont eat it. pastas have to be consume within 2 hours or else, there's microbes.
one of the important practice is wash hands before and after eating.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Mad Cow Study Points To Virus, Not Proteins

Researchers have found more evidence that a virus may cause mad cow disease and a related brain disorder in humans, threatening to overturn 25 years of research focusing on malformed proteins called prions.

Nerve cells infected with the human form of mad cow disease contained a virus-size particle that doesn't appear in uninfected cells, said Laura Manuelidis, a neuropathologist at Yale Medical School. Cells infected with scrapie, a related sheep disorder, contained the same germ.


The findings challenge the idea that the diseases are spread by prions, abnormal proteins that have also been detected in the brains of infected humans and animals. Stanley Prusiner won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for research identifying prions as the infectious agent.

But questions have arisen because people and animals are thought to catch the disease by eating infected meat, and some researchers argue that the stomach and intestines would quickly break down any protein before it reached the blood or brain.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

it mostly deals with the brain and spinal cord. You can still eat beef without fear, at least in the US, I don't know if there's been any recent outbreaks in Europe or not. To my knowledge, there's only been 2 cases in the US, they (the cows) originated from Canada & it didn't enter our beef supply. There are a lot of countries that have had mad cow cases reported, so if you're traveling overseas much you might wanna check that out, or just avoid their beef!

Another random fact--- apparently milk from an infected cow is safe. Not sure if I want to test that idea myself, but since milk has nothing to do with the brain & spinal cord, it's said to ok for consumption.