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Three U.S. scientists are concerned about the potential of people contracting Creutzfeldt Jakob disease — the human form of “mad cow disease” — from eating farmed fish who are fed byproducts rendered from cows.
Mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy is a fatal brain disease in cattle, which scientists believe can cause Creutzfeldt Jakob disease in humans who eat infected cow parts.
In the latest issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Dr. Robert P. Friedland, a neurologist at University of Louisville in Kentucky and colleagues suggest that farmed fish fed contaminated cow parts could transmit Creutzfeldt Jakob disease.
The scientists want government regulators to ban feeding cow meat or bone meal to fish until the safety of this common practice can be confirmed.
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“We have not proven that it’s possible for fish to transmit the disease to humans. Still, we believe that out of reasonable caution for public health, the practice of feeding rendered cows to fish should be prohibited,” Friedland said in a prepared statement. “Fish do very well in the seas without eating cows,” he added.
