The reported international distribution of BSE is at odds with established facts:

Approximately 40,000 tonnes of MBM were exported from the UK between 1985 and 1988; France alone imported at least 17,000 tonnes during this period and yet has only reported 20 cases of BSE compared with nearly 100,000 in the UK during the same period. During 1985-1990 the UK exported 57,900 cattle. These animals would have resulted in 1,668 cases of BSE had they remained in Great Britain, but only a small fraction of these cases have been reported by the recipient countries.
It has been suggested that only one in six probable cases of BSE within the EC has been reported.

It couldn't happen here...

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) maintains that no cases of BSE have been confirmed in the USA, but transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) in the USA has been found in mink fed on 'downer cows' and never fed on sheep which therefore could not have been exposed to scrapie (McKenzie et al. Seminars in Virology, 7: 201-206, 1996).
Recently (August 1997), 5 cases of CJD were reported in Kentucky in patients reported to have a history of eating squirrel brains (don't ask...)

It couldn't happen to me...

© AJC 1997.