The future of BSE, and CJD2
which is derived from it, is still very uncertain and no one can
be sure if it will ever be totally eradicated, or even brought
under control. Even though so much has been learned about it in
the past few years there are still many uncertainties, paramount
of these is exactly how the Prion
works, and if it is definitely the agent of TSE.
A matter of urgency must be to find a simple, economical way to
destroy the disease so that there can be no risk of the agent
surviving from 'destroyed' carcasses and re-infecting herds in
the future. There is also growing concern that, due to the indestructible
nature of the Prion, the land on
which heavily infected herds graze could become contaminated and
so be rendered unusable for cattle farming or vegetable cultivation
unless the whole layer of top-soil was removed, something that
was done in some of the enclosures in London Zoo after the ZSE
out break there.
The other big worry related to BSE
in the not too distant future is the prospect of hugely increase
levels of CJD in people, contracted
before the offal ban came into effect in 1989.
The disease takes about ten years to incubate in humans before
any symptoms become visible, so any epidemic that occurs will
begin in the next two years as people who caught the disease in
the late '80's start to become
noticeably ill with it.
One thing that is clear though is that most of the current crisis
could have been avoided if the British government had taken notice
of scientists when the first cases emerged. From even before BSE
scholars in the field had been warning that feeding a herbivore
meat products, especially those rendered from its own species,
would cause problems. Experts also advised the government to be
more cautious when the first cases of BSE
were being fobbed off a harmless to humans without any knowledge
to back it up, not even a positive idea of where it came from.
For now though we just have to wait and hope that the worst-case
scenario does not proceed, and that research that is now continuing
apace and the measures that are in place are enough to bring the
BSE epidemic that already seems to
be waning under control.
