UR20Z
Dumpster Diver
Well, then....you'll just have to chalk it up to what info I picked up 20 years ago, when an in-law in upstate NY contracted and passed from BSE. The docs never did figure out how he got it. That'll teach me to stay more current on obscure diseases in Oceania. The Net is useful....I suppose I probably should take advantage of it ONCE in awhile.
<heh> That damned ol' 'net...
Back in the mid-oughts, the newest BSE/CJS info I've bothered to keep up on, the best anybody could say was that BSE "migrates" to people by way of consuming infected nerve tissue, specifically, nerve tissue in close physical proximity to the brain/spinal cord. Last I was paying attention, there was some retraining going on for butchers that aimed at minimizing the chance of letting such tissue get into the food supply. Used to be when you wanted to do beef ribs, you could get a full rack that included the vertebrae. Since the outbreak back in the early oughts, you can't get 'em that way anymore - anything directly connected to the spine is verboten, or so I understand. Your local custom butcher MIGHT do it for you on special request, but these days, they've probably been trained/fined out of it. Last I knew, word had come down from the FDA that for any large scale packer, anything closer than 2 inches from the spine is to be considered contaminated/unfit for human consumption, and disposed of accordingly. Chucking it into the grinder is NOT a legal option anymore.