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American Morning

Mad Cow Disease

Aired May 21, 2003 - 09:16   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. officials say the case of mad cow disease in Canada poses very little risk to human health. Still, the FDA has banned Canadian beef products and animal feed, at least for the time being.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with a kind of primer on mad cow disease, what it is, and how it's spread.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning again.

It's a precautionary measure by the U.S. government to ban the beef from Canada into the United States. But as you say, probably a very, very low risk. Mad cow disease is a rare, fatal brain disorder. It's called bovine spongioform disease as well. And that's -- the name's not that important. But basically, it causes holes in the brain in cows, which is why we see pictures of cows first developing problems with their walking and eventually dying, as this particular disease attacks the entire central nervous system, the spinal cord and the brain, sort of an interesting thing from a medical standpoint, caused by an organism called a preon, which is different than a virus, different than a bacteria. This is a type of protein that investigators figured out a few years ago, actually about 20 years ago that caused this disease. Basically it's a rare disease.

The thing that people are most concerned about, obviously, everyone talking about it, is whether or not humans can get it, and could they get it from this one particular cow in Alberta, Canada? The department of agriculture secretary had this to say about this earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANN VENEMAN, AGRICULTURE SECY.: This incident shows that the system worked, that we continue to test cattle. This was an older cow that had some disease problems, was not put into the food chain, was quickly taken out, and I think it shows that our system of strong surveillance in North America does work, and that our food supply is safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: That's pretty much been the prevailing thinking on this as well. Probably no one -- Memorial weekend coming up, no one will get sick from mad cow disease. This beef did not get into the food supply. A couple of quick other facts about mad cow disease around the world, 180,000 cases, that's in cows, around the world. The first case diagnosed in 1986. Remember, they had the pictures of almost four million cows being slaughtered at that time to prevent, stave off mad cow disease, cases in 24 countries now. None of the beef from those 24 positive countries are beef that's coming into the United States. Canada now being on the list as well. It's a very, very rare disease in humans, about 100 cases over the last 15 years.

CHOI: So you said 1986, the first known case of mad cow disease. But where did this disease originate?

GUPTA: Well, that's takes a good question. Again, sort of interesting from a medical standpoint, interesting investigative dilemma. It actually started with a trip to a veterinarian. They took a cow in England to the vet who was acting funny, and they started to look for all sort of different things, slowly putting the pieces together, finding this unusual agent of a preon, a protein that causes infection, and then figuring out that most likely, it came from actually eating nervous system parts of another animal.

So sometimes when feed is created, parts of the body, the nervous system, actually get into the feed, and if a cow actually eats some of that and is infected, the feed is infected, the cow might potentially get mad cow disease. That's most likely where it comes from. There are variants of the disease. There are some other theories out there about this, but this is the most likely one.

CHOI: All right, Dr. Gupta, thank you so much.

GUPTA: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired May 21, 2003 - 09:16   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: U.S. officials say the case of mad cow disease in Canada poses very little risk to human health. Still, the FDA has banned Canadian beef products and animal feed, at least for the time being.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here with a kind of primer on mad cow disease, what it is, and how it's spread.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning again.

It's a precautionary measure by the U.S. government to ban the beef from Canada into the United States. But as you say, probably a very, very low risk. Mad cow disease is a rare, fatal brain disorder. It's called bovine spongioform disease as well. And that's -- the name's not that important. But basically, it causes holes in the brain in cows, which is why we see pictures of cows first developing problems with their walking and eventually dying, as this particular disease attacks the entire central nervous system, the spinal cord and the brain, sort of an interesting thing from a medical standpoint, caused by an organism called a preon, which is different than a virus, different than a bacteria. This is a type of protein that investigators figured out a few years ago, actually about 20 years ago that caused this disease. Basically it's a rare disease.

The thing that people are most concerned about, obviously, everyone talking about it, is whether or not humans can get it, and could they get it from this one particular cow in Alberta, Canada? The department of agriculture secretary had this to say about this earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANN VENEMAN, AGRICULTURE SECY.: This incident shows that the system worked, that we continue to test cattle. This was an older cow that had some disease problems, was not put into the food chain, was quickly taken out, and I think it shows that our system of strong surveillance in North America does work, and that our food supply is safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEMMER: That's pretty much been the prevailing thinking on this as well. Probably no one -- Memorial weekend coming up, no one will get sick from mad cow disease. This beef did not get into the food supply. A couple of quick other facts about mad cow disease around the world, 180,000 cases, that's in cows, around the world. The first case diagnosed in 1986. Remember, they had the pictures of almost four million cows being slaughtered at that time to prevent, stave off mad cow disease, cases in 24 countries now. None of the beef from those 24 positive countries are beef that's coming into the United States. Canada now being on the list as well. It's a very, very rare disease in humans, about 100 cases over the last 15 years.

CHOI: So you said 1986, the first known case of mad cow disease. But where did this disease originate?

GUPTA: Well, that's takes a good question. Again, sort of interesting from a medical standpoint, interesting investigative dilemma. It actually started with a trip to a veterinarian. They took a cow in England to the vet who was acting funny, and they started to look for all sort of different things, slowly putting the pieces together, finding this unusual agent of a preon, a protein that causes infection, and then figuring out that most likely, it came from actually eating nervous system parts of another animal.

So sometimes when feed is created, parts of the body, the nervous system, actually get into the feed, and if a cow actually eats some of that and is infected, the feed is infected, the cow might potentially get mad cow disease. That's most likely where it comes from. There are variants of the disease. There are some other theories out there about this, but this is the most likely one.

CHOI: All right, Dr. Gupta, thank you so much.

GUPTA: All right.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com