You glance at the burger at your fingertips. It looks delicious, but inside a stealthy pathogen may be lurking. The beef may have come from a cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease - a fatal neurodegenerative disorder in cows. Once you ingest the burger, the pathogen won’t make you sick immediately. Instead, after a few years it may manifest into a fatal human variant called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Sadly, epidemics originating from infected meat, such as the types found in burgers, have taken place in the past - the most famous one took place in Britain. Mad cow disease ended up killing over 179,000 cattle directly and even lead to the culling of another 4.4 million cattle as a precaution. Even worse, around 80 people lost their lives likely due to eating infected beef.3
Prions: The Phantom Within
"Since prions are infectious proteins . . . they are resistant to heat, ionizing radiation, proteases, and traditional autoclave treatments"
Image from: CDC
By: Max Medroso