However feeding animals by-products of other animals can transmit dangerous diseases to humans, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in cows.

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The ministry would also like to oversee a wider distribution of genes from the small percentage of British rams that are resistant to scrapie, a sheep disease similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad-cow disease as it is more commonly known.

ECONOMIST: The search for long-lived sheep sperm

The decision, confirmed by a ministry press official in Brasilia, follows Egypt's ban of beef on Monday from Parana state, where a cow that died two years ago had developed atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

MSN: Saudi Arabia bans Brazil beef imports on mad cow doubts

And in the last fifteen years, it has not had a single case of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), "mad cow disease".

BBC: The farmer's tale

The hormone was prepared from human pituitary glands recovered from cadavers, and the absence of rigorous collection guidelines and purification procedures permitted contamination of the formulated drug with the agent that causes Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, the human equivalent of "mad-cow disease, " or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

FORBES: Magazine Article

Great Britain's economy is reeling from the cumulative effect of outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as Mad Cow disease, and more recently Hoof and Mouth disease.

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French consumption of beef plunged last year when three supermarket chains said they had sold beef from a herd containing an animal infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), otherwise known as mad cow disease.

CNN: France urges better beef labelling