Crazy fish disease can threaten humanity

Writing in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease , neuroscientist Robert P. Friedland wonders if we are safe when eating fish from fish farms farmed with food products from livestock industry. dairy cows . This has caused a concern for the US food industry.

Friedland (University of Louisville) and colleagues have questioned whether the current farms that feed fish with cow products can transmit mad cow disease. They asked the government authorities to immediately ban the use of beef meat and bone to feed fish until it proved that it was completely harmless.

(Artwork: Scienceagogo)

Creutzfeldt Jakob disease is an untreated disease and all patients die, can be infected by eating a piece of beef infected with BSE. An outbreak of this disease began in England and many countries banned the breeding of animals with food made from cows infected for fear of infection in livestock with them. It must be said that the probability of spreading mad cow disease to people eating fish raised in livestock farms is very low because there is a barrier between species. But according to Friedland, the disease can still spread by eating a "carrier" that is not itself infected. It is also possible for fish to eat mad beef, causing them to morphologically change, thus allowing the infection to pass between the two species.

' The fact that there has not been a case of mad cow disease just because eating fish fed with mad beef does not mean that beef farming is safe. Because the incubation of BSE can last for decades , "Friedland said," We have not yet proven that fish can transmit disease to humans. But we think it is still essential for the health of the community to pay attention to this. The use of mad beef should be banned from processing into fish feed '.

" Sea fish do not need to eat beef and still live well ," he added.