CLAIMS that abormal prion proteins have been found in American sheep are
setting alarm bells ringing in the US. But BSE experts are unimpressed.
The US government ordered the incineration of 376 sheep from Vermont, after
suggestions that four of the flock were infected with BSE—the brain
disease in cows that causes deadly new variant CJD (vCJD) in people. If the four
cases are confirmed as BSE, they will be the first sheep known to be infected by
farm feed, and would raise the spectre of more human infection.
Larry Faillace, a former animal disease researcher, imported Belgian and…
