Are downer cows the only animals affected by BSE-type diseases?
• Cattle and certain wildlife (eland, kudu, pumas, lions, and tigers)—bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), discovered 1986. • Pigs—via experimental inoculation, 1989, with evidence suggesting that porcine spongiform encephalopathy can hide as a subclinical infection • Deer and elk—Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), 1967. • Domestic cats—Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy (FSE), 1990 (see question 8 below). • Humans—Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), 1921, and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), 1996. • Mink—Transmissible Mink Encephalopathy (TME), 1947. • Sheep and goats—Scrapie, 1700s. Furthermore, TSEs can remain in an animal for months or years before showing any symptoms of the disease. Thus, besides downers, seemingly healthy looking animals may be carriers of TSEs. Currently, there are no reliable tests to detect whether a live animal has TSE. There are TSE tests that can detect prions in dead animals. However, these tests are only accurate if there are a high number of irregula
