Can humans get mad cow disease?

Mad Cow Disease and Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Causes Prion diseases are unique and can be transmitted in a variety of ways: Some forms can be inherited such as familial CJD, Gerstmann-Sträussler-Scheinker disease (GSS), and fatal familial insomnia (FFI). read more

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a transmissible, slowly progressive, degenerative, and fatal disease affecting the central nervous system of adult cattle. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has tested hundreds of thousands of cattle for BSE. read more

Those cases were linked to food contaminated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a prion disease that causes variant CJD, otherwise known as "mad cow" disease. The public has good reason to be concerned about the transmission of BSE to humans. read more