By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jan.31, 2001 -- By following prudent
guidelines, U.S. service members and their families living
in Europe should not fear catching the human derivative of
the so-called mad cow disease, DoD veterinary officials
say.

A traveler's advisory issued by the Centers for Disease
Control for U.S. citizens in Europe notes that "the
relative risk of becoming infected with BSE is very small,
if it exists at all," said Army Col. Scott Severin, deputy
director of DoD's Veterinary Service Activity. "BSE" is
short for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or what the
media and public have dubbed "mad cow disease," he said.

Since March 1996, DoD has not purchased beef from the
United Kingdom for commissaries, dining halls, post
exchange outlets and authorized vendors to avoid possible
customer contact with BSE, he said.

"The beef our service members are eating in the dining
facilities comes from the United States," Severin said.
"The meats being sold through Army and Air Force Exchange
Service through the concessions and shoppettes or through
the commissaries are all from the United States or from
countries outside of Europe where there's no evidence of
BSE."

He said DoD took steps in March 2000 to ban the procurement
for sale of European-origin ruminant (beef, veal, mutton
and lamb) meat and meat products containing them, for
consumption by U.S. service members in Europe.
"Additionally, DoD has distributed consumer awareness
packets throughout European Command and Central Command
areas of operations," he said.

Severin said the CDC's guidance to Americans who eat on the
European economy and are concerned about exposure to BSE is
to stay away from beef and beef products, if possible. "If
you do want to eat beef (off installation), go with solid
muscle meats like steak or roasts instead of something
ground, like hamburgers or sausages," he said. "There is no
risk associated with eating pork, poultry, milk or dairy
products."

BSE is one of a group of chronic, degenerative diseases
that attack the victim's central nervous system, Severin
said. As its name implies, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
affects cattle. The human form is called variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Sheep spongiform encephalopathy,
one of the more prevalent and better known forms, goes by
the name scrapie. Spongiform encephalopathies also occur in
other animals including goats, elk, mule deer and cats.

The disease was first identified in the United Kingdom in
1986. British and Irish officials ordered thousands of
cattle destroyed to prevent its spread, he said. Spongiform
encephalopathy can spread when victims ingest or are
injected with infected matter or tissues. Severin said
experts today blame contaminated animal feed for the
British outbreak.

"The British government put feed bans into place that
appear to have been effective in reducing the epidemic in
the United Kingdom," he said. That epidemic peaked in 1993
and the incidence rate has steadily declined since,
although cases still occur, he noted.

Severin said concerns about BSE resurged in 1996 when the
first cases of a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
appeared in the United Kingdom. There "appeared to be a
very strong correlation between eating beef from BSE-
infected animals and the occurrence of the variant CJD in
humans," he noted.

The European Union banned the export of all British beef
products in 1996 in an effort to prevent the spread of BSE
to the continent, he said. This action failed to stop the
spread of BSE to Europe.

"BSE has shown up on the continent. The most recent
countries to have confirmed cases are Spain, Germany and
Italy," Severin said.

He said the potential danger to humans from eating infected
beef products is real, though remote. CDC has estimated the
chances of contracting CJD from eating European beef at
"less than one in 10 billion servings."

Both BSE and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseases are caused
by "prions," short for "proteinaceous infectious
particles," according to Web-based research sources.
Scientists don't know how or why yet, but prions cause a
host's healthy proteins to turn deadly.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is incurable; no serum or vaccine
exists, Severin said. Victims usually die within a year, he
noted. All cases of variant CJD cases have occurred in the
United Kingdom, with the exception of three cases in France
and one in Ireland.

In the United States, a recent quarantine of a Texas cattle
herd made the headlines, but turned out to be "nondisease-
related," Severin said. "There has never been BSE in U.S.
beef herds," he said. "The U.S. Department of Agriculture
has had an extensive surveillance program looking for BSE
in the United States for years. They've never identified a
single case of BSE."