Netzingers -- Explicit coquina que est optima medicina.

A new study by the University of Texas indicates that prion mutations, and cross-species transmission, may be easier and more widespread than ever before.  For the first time, rapid-onset spongiform encephalopathy diseases have been created in the laboratory.  Claudio Soto, a research scientist, has created totally new strains of wasting diseases. 

This raises the specter that any natural reservoir of prion disease - in cattle, sheep, deer, moose, elk and other hoofed ungulates - can serve to infect a wider population in another species.  The time is long past to consider that any form of brain wasting disease - not just the feared CJD -  but other diseases, such as the current epidemic of dementia, as possible prion infection.   Onset of symptoms may take decades, and by that time, the realization that a mad cow (or mad-moose) epidemic is taking place will come as a sudden wave of the utmost human tragedy.