How do animals and humans become infected with TSEs?
Cattle typically develop the disease after eating a prepared feed mix that contains meat or rendered animal products from animals harboring a TSE. Ruminant animals, such as cattle, are true herbivores and do not naturally consume animal products at all. The practice of “feeding cattle back to cattle” was designed by industrial agriculture; animals are fed protein sources from other rendered animals to increase their rate of weight-gain and milk production. Unlike bacteria, molds and viruses, prions are not adequately destroyed by heat sterilization, domestic bleach, or formaldehyde sterilization, and can survive even incineration at temperatures hot enough to melt lead. If TSE-infected animals are not intercepted, their contaminated parts such as brain or spinal cord tissue can still enter the human food supply, even under the new USDA ban. Currently, after killing an animal, slaughterhouses use a saw to cut the carcass along the spinal column, and this process has been shown to disper
