Mad cow disease may seem like a vegetarian plot to scare
everyone else off from eating flesh, but recent news from
Britain gives beef eaters and tofu fanciers alike something to
worry about. On February 26, the British government took the
extraordinary step of banning all British blood products for
domestic use to prevent the spread of "new variant Creutzfeldt-
Jakob disease" (nvCJD), the fatal brain-wasting illness thought
to originate from mad cows ("Mad Cows Ate My Brain" SW,
3/12/98). British medical authorities defend the safety of UK
blood and deem the action "a precautionary measure" to guard
against a "theoretical risk." While the Brits' blood ban may be
purely preventive, it does raise questions about whether similar
dangers, theoretical or otherwise, exist in the American blood
supply. See end of article for related links. New variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and the native human form of the
illness, classical Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), are members
of a family of illnesses known as transmissib