Scientists theorize link between funeral rites, mad cow disease

• Dead bodies washed ashore in India may have contaminated animal feed that was exported to the United Kingdom, triggering mad cow disease, scientists say.
• The cause of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which infected an estimated 2 million cattle during an epidemic, in the UK is unknown.
• It is thought to have resulted from cattle being fed material containing remains of sheep infected with the disease scrapie.
• But Professor Alan Colchester of the University of Kent says it may have been caused by the tonnes of animal bones and other tissue imported from India for animal feed.
• Scrapie, BSE and CJD are all illnesses caused by brain proteins that transform themselves into infectious agents.
• Professor Colchester and his daughter Nancy, of the University of Edinburgh, say that many human and animal corpses are disposed of in rivers in India in line with Hindu custom.
• The remains wash ashore in poor areas where bone collectors work.
• "We are aware of a considerable risk of the incorporation of human remains with the animal remains that are collected - they are processed locally and some have been exported," Professor Colchester said.
• Scientists believe humans acquired variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) from eating meat from infected cattle.
• Since vCJD was first detected in the mid-1990s, more than 150 people have died of the illness.
• The scientists say the risk of a load of animal byproducts being infected with human material would be very small.
• But importing animal material went on for decades so the cumulative risk could become significant over time.
• "Scientists must proceed cautiously when hypothesising about a disease that has such wide geographic, cultural and religious implications," Professor Shankar says.