Reply #3: You are more likely to hit the lottery or be struck by lightning [View All]

than you are to get mad cow disease at present. It's just not that common a thing in beef cattle. It's much more common out west in wild meat, especially elk. There's quite an epidemic of wasting disease, a variant of scrapie/mad cow/CJD in western elk herds.

All muscle meats contain some nerve tissue, although not nearly as much as in the tail or in neck bones. All meat from an infected cow is potentially infective, which is why we want downer cows out of the food chain completely.

Everything we do in life carries risk, and most things we do now are far riskier than eating beef, even beef bones containing spinal cord tissue. If I liked meat, I'd probably go with the statistics, although I'd stick to organically raised meat because I don't want mine adulterated with hormones and antibiotics.