BSE is a man-made disease. It arose from feeding cattle with the remains of scrapie-infected sheep. Cows are vegetarian and should not in any case be given animal protein but in Britain during the early 1980’s, commercially-driven changes in the way meat and bone meal were rendered, led to feed that had not been adequately treated to destroy infection. As a result, scrapie – a common illness among sheep – passed to cows, producing a new and fatal disease.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy was first identified in 1986 and soon reached epidemic proportions; in the worst year, 1992, there were 36,681 confirmed cases. The disease attacks the central nervous system, producing innumerable small holes in the brain. Infected animals lose weight and become nervous, frenzied and apprehensive, unusually sensitive to touch or sound. They stagger and fall, unable to walk properly. BSE was dubbed "mad cow disease" and by 1996 over 150,000 animals had died.

With this arsenal at their disposal, the food industry certainly has enough power to make its voice heard in debates over food safety, but "mad cow disease" is only one of multiple indications that the modern food industry is tampering with forces of nature that it does not fully understand.

The debate over these practices needs to involve more than the voices of industry and its designated experts. If we let industry set the rules of the debate, there will be no limit to what we’ll have to swallow, and the nightmare of "mad cow disease" or something just as bad, or worse not only can happen again, but almost certainly will.