Book Description
This story of mad cow disease and how it spread is a medical detective story loaded with excitement and mystery. The book looks at what the disease is and how it jumped from animals to humans. Real life case studies make the story come alive. What prions are, how they were discovered, and why they are so dangerous is also discussed in a highly readable manner. In addition, protective measures, future fears, and current research is examined. ... Read more

Book Description
Fear of mad cow disease, a lethal illness transmitted from infected beef to humans, has spread from Europe to the United States and around the world. Originally published to much acclaim in France, this scientific thriller, available in English for the first time and updated with a new chapter on developments in 2001, tells of the hunt for the cause of an enigmatic class of fatal brain infections, of which mad cow disease is the latest incarnation. In gripping, nontechnical prose, Maxime Schwartz details the deadly manifestations of these diseases throughout history, describes the major players and events that led to discoveries about their true nature, and outlines our current state of knowledge. The book concludes by addressing the question we all want answered: should we be afraid?
The story begins in the eighteenth century with the identification of a mysterious illness called scrapie that was killing British sheep. It was not until the 1960s that scientists understood that several animal and human diseases, including scrapie, were identical, and together identified them as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). The various guises assumed throughout history by TSE include an illness called kuru in a cannibalistic tribe in Papua New Guinea, an infectious disease that killed a group of children who had been treated for growth hormone deficiencies, and mad cow disease. Revealing the fascinating process of scientific discovery that led to our knowledge of TSE, Schwartz relates pivotal events in the history of biology, including the Pasteurian revolution, the birth of genetics, the emergence of molecular biology, and the latest developments in biotechnology. He also explains the Nobel Prize-winning prion hypothesis, which has rewritten the rules of biological heredity and is a key link between the distinctive diseases of TSE.
Up-to-date, informative, and thoroughly captivating, How the Cows Turned Mad tells the story of a disease that continues to elude on many levels. Yet science has come far in understanding its origins, incubation, and transmission. This authoritative book is a stunning case history that illuminates the remarkable progression of science.Download Description
Fear of mad cow disease, a lethal illness transmitted from infected beef to humans, has spread from Europe to the United States and around the world. Originally published to much acclaim in France, this scientific thriller, available in English for the first time and updated with a new chapter on developments in 2001, tells of the hunt for the cause of an enigmatic class of fatal brain infections, of which mad cow disease is the latest incarnation. In gripping, nontechnical prose, Maxime Schwartz details the deadly manifestations of these diseases throughout history, describes the major players and events that led to discoveries about their true nature, and outlines our current state of knowledge. The book concludes by addressing the question we all want answered: should we be afraid?The story begins in the eighteenth century with the identification of a mysterious illness called scrapie that was killing British sheep. It was not until the 1960s that scientists understood that several animal and human diseases, including scrapie, were identical, and together identified them as transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). Revealing the fascinating process of scientific discovery that led to our knowledge of TSE, Schwartz relates pivotal events in the history of biology, including the Pasteurian revolution, the birth of genetics, the emergence of molecular biology, and the latest developments in biotechnology. He also explains the Nobel Prize-winning prion hypothesis, which has rewritten the rules of biological heredity and is a key link between the distinctive diseases of TSE.Up-to-date, informative, and thoroughly captivating, How the Cows Turned Mad tells the story of a disease that continues to elude on many levels. Yet science has come far in understanding its origins, incubation, and transmission. This authoritative book is a stunning case history that illuminates the remarkable progression of science. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Well Written, Scary as heck
An amazing tour of the history of prion diseases.From start to finish, it's well written, beuatifully explained and frighrening.If this book hasn't scared you, read it again

The molecular biology is astounding
This is a very complicated matter, with highly specific vocabulary that attempts to describe a variety of forms of a disease which is capable of being distinguished by different incubation periods in the various inbred species of genetically pure or altered mice that have been inoculated with transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) in the strains that have been isolated before the French edition of this book went to press near the end of the year 2000.A key word is prion, a protein that might form part of the membrane of a normal cell.Originally in this book, prion was defined by Stanley Prusiner, winner of the Nobel Prize in 1997, in 1982 as the carrier of the infection for TSEs."Prions are small proteinaceous infectious particles which are resistant to inactivation by most procedures that modify nucleic acids."(p. 100).Forming rods in a polymer structure, ultimately doctors, "when examining brain tissue from kuru patients, had been able to recognize what they called amyloid plaques" (pp. 101-102).

Assuming that any cow in England which showed signs of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was an indication that the entire herd had been fed contaminated meat and bone meal, (from "forty-six British plants that until 1988 had converted a total of 1.3 million metric tons of meat and bones into animal feed" p. 147), "the total number of cattle affected by the disease from the beginning of the epidemic until the end of 2000 was nearly two hundred thousand in Great Britain," (p. 151).Since the cow form of the disease and the sheep form act differently in mice who are infected, a grand experimental test was performed to see if any sheep have picked up the BSE form:

"In the summer of 2001, rumors began to circulate to the effect that the BSE agent had been found in sheep; the official outcome was to be announced at the end of the year.Europe's health authorities were in a state of red alert.If the results were positive, drastic steps would have to be taken in the sheep-farming sector.Then, just two days before the outcome was made public, there was a dramatic announcement:The researchers had made a mistake.They had mingled samples of sheep brains with samples of cattle brains--and thus there are still no data on the possible transmission of BSE to sheep in natural conditions."(p. 188).

I have noticed that when people try to assign unique numbers to anything, there is always someone who fails to notice that two of those numbers are not the same.I have even worked with a computer that had so few consecutive numbers in a field that it was not able to tell the difference between numbers that had more than the number of digits in the field.There are forty million sheep in Britain, few of which look like cows, even in that night in which all cows are black, but worse than that: the brain samples might look a lot like brain samples from a cow.This experiment was more than double blind if no one kept tract of how samples were mingled.

I love the word epizootic:"Why was an epizootic--an animal epidemic--declared at one particular time, the early 1980s, and only in the United Kingdom?"(p. 189).It must be related to "the death of six white tigers from the Bristol zoo between 1970 and 1977; they died of what was then diagnosed as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, but no one knows what became of the corpses. . . .After all, it isn't often that a cow eats tiger in the way that we eat beef."(p. 190).There are so many things no one knows.

Boring & Dry
Maxime Schwartz was a molecular biologist and is now a professor at the Pasteur Institute in Paris.Schwartz traces the history of medical research into spongiform encephalopathies, and how the scientific understanding of how they are spread has changed over time.If you know anything about Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or Mad Cow disease, I don't think you'll learn anything new in this book.How the Cows Turned Mad is not a sensational book, nor even a good book.Quite simply it is too wordy and dull. ... Read more

Book Description
Mark Purdey's life changed one day in 1984, when a Ministry of Agriculture inspector told him he must administer a toxic organophosphate pesticide to his dairy herd. Passionately committed to organic farming and convinced of the harmful effects of chemicals in the environment, he refused to comply. "It was as if my whole life became focused," he explained later. Before they had a chance to prosecute, Purdey took the Ministry to court and won his case. Those experiences led him to challenge the orthodox line on the origins of Mad Cow Disease and its human counterpart, variant CJD. Could the insecticide used in the official program have precipitated the spread of the disease?

Purdey's quest to discover the truth was hampered at every turn by government bureaucracies and self-serving scientific cliques who sought to smear and marginalize him. Dogged by dirty tricks and forced to work alone as something of a scientific sleuth, he struggled to reveal hidden interests and dangerous secrets. His supporters included many members of the public, as well as Prince Charles, as well as the poet Ted Hughes, who wrote to him expressing "a million congratulations."

Increasingly sceptical of the official narrative, Purdey was certain that toxic environmental factors would provide answers, and so embarked on a self-funded worldwide odyssey to investigate. Animal Pharm follows him on these eco-detective trails to locations as diverse as Iceland, Sardinia, Colorado, and Australia. Purdey uncovers contamination from industry, munitions, pesticides, nuclear experiments, and natural geology, linking these with the emergence of a range of neurodegenerative diseases. His research is at once compelling and disturbing, helping to create a paradigm shift in our understanding of the relationship of pollutants to disease and health. ... Read more

Book Description
The alarm sounded by Canada's recently confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has reaffirmed the exigency of establishing improved safeguards and more aggressive surveillance protocols in North America and around the world.Research converging on the probable causative agent-prion proteins-calls for intensive assessment of the headway gained in tracing prions, testing for transmissible neurodegenerative diseases, and developing methods for cornering the epidemic. Administered by an illustrious panel of 36 international contributors, this timely book marshals techniques for prion protein assay and diagnosis of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Family Practice News, published by International Medical News Group on April 1, 2004. The length of the article is 578 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: FDA moves to minimize mad cow disease risks: tracking, testing.(News)
Author: Heidi Splete
Publication: Family Practice News (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2004
Publisher: International Medical News Group
Volume: 34Issue: 7Page: 10(1)

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Book Description
Ever wonder if the hamburger you are eating is safe?How about the milk you poured for your child?Chances are that it isn't. You might not know that because the truth has been kept from you, until now.This is the story of my friend's struggle to expose the conspiracy that has allowed Mad Cow Disease to endanger millions world wide.Hopefully it is not too late. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Uninformative
I do not recommend spending money on this book.I am very concerned about Mad Cow Disease and BSE -- to the point where I only eat beef purchased from local farmers who guarantee that their cows have not eaten other animals.I was looking for a book that would give me more infomation on what governments are and aren't doing to protect people from this disease.Instead I got what can only be a fictional short story, and a very poorly written one at that.I think it was quite rude of the author not to specifically mention that his book is fiction, since its scoffingly unconvincing narrative might only serve to encourage skeptics to dismiss the possibility that goverments aren't doing all they should to protect their citizens from this disease.

I'll never look at a burger the same
Is this for real? The author leaves me wondering whether I should eat beef or not. It reminds me of War of the Worlds. How much danger are we really in. I would recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about Mad Cow Disease. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from SourceMex Economic News & Analysis on Mexico, published by Latin American Data Base/Latin American Institute on January 21, 2004. The length of the article is 1527 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: MEXICO IMPOSES EMBARGO ON IMPORTS OF U.S. CATTLE & BEEF FOLLOWING DISCOVERY OF MAD COW DISEASE IN WASHINGTON STATE.
Publication: SourceMex Economic News & Analysis on Mexico (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 21, 2004
Publisher: Latin American Data Base/Latin American Institute


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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Transplant News, published by Transplant Communications, Inc. on June 30, 2001. The length of the article is 467 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: FDA urged to tighten blood rules; mad cow disease seen as a growing threat.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
Publication: Transplant News (Newsletter)
Date: June 30, 2001
Publisher: Transplant Communications, Inc.
Volume: 11Issue: 12Page: NA

Article Type: Brief Article, Statistical Data Included

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Siempre!, published by Edicional Siempre on January 31, 2001. The length of the article is 630 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Vuelven las vacas locas.(histerismo social y riesgos de salud de la enfermedad de las vacas locas; Europa)(TT: The comeback of mad-cow disease.)(TA: social hysteria and health risks of mad-cow disease; Europe)(Artículo Breve)(Columna)
Author: Camilo José Cela Conde
Publication: Siempre! (Refereed)
Date: January 31, 2001
Publisher: Edicional Siempre
Volume: 47Issue: 2485Page: 53

Article Type: Artículo Breve, Columna

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs, published by Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs on March 12, 2001. The length of the article is 2912 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Mad cow disease: agriculture issues.
Author: Alejandro E. Segarra
Publication: Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs (Report)
Date: March 12, 2001
Publisher: Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports and Issue Briefs
Page: NA

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Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR), published by The Register Guard on December 26, 2003. The length of the article is 572 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Track mad cow disease.(Editorials)(Where did Washington case come from?)(Editorial)
Publication: The Register-Guard (Eugene, OR) (Newspaper)
Date: December 26, 2003
Publisher: The Register Guard
Page: a16

Article Type: Editorial

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