Ok, I am not questioning that Mad cow disease has horrific results for those people that catch it, but the hype over this one cow found to be sick seems rather excessive- As I understand it only a couple of hundred have died from it in the past decade- seems like a little bit of an overreaction... This isnt the black death!

Slightly changing the subject- Mad cow disease is a unusual type of disease, It is a prion illness- prions are protiens that have not folded in the correct way, and can induce other protiens to fold incorrectly as well- Less like a virus than a 'catalytic poison'... I remember speculation a few years ago that Alzheimers was a prion disease- any one know if that is indeed the case?

The two diseases seem very similar... both are just about the cruelest diseases I can imagine...