Mad cow disease seems to pop up in the news now and then. But
what is it, and how likely are people to get it? What Is Mad Cow
Disease? Mad cow disease is an incurable, fatal brain disease
that affects cattle and possibly some other animals, such as
goats and sheep. The medical name for mad cow disease is bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (pronounced: bo-vine spun-jih-form en-
seh-fah-la-puh-thee), or BSE for short. It's called mad cow
disease because it affects a cow's nervous system, causing a cow
to act strangely and lose control of its ability to do normal
things, such as walk. How Do People Get It? Only certain animals
can get BSE — people don't actually get mad cow disease.
However, experts have found a link between BSE and a rare brain
condition that affects people, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (vCJD). Researchers believe that people who eat beef
from cows that have BSE are at risk of developing a form of
vCJD. vCJD is caused by an abnormal type of protein in the brain
called a prion. When pe