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Originally Posted by Tokolosh
That's how mad cow disease was transmitted, if I'm not mistaken.
Cow brains are a no-no in my book.
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you can get Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human variant of mad cow) from any tissue that's had prionic contamination. brain tissue just happens to collect more of the protein-snippets that cause the disease.
even rose gardeners have been highly susceptible thanks to bone meal in their fertilzer. bone meal has been a chief vector due to the fact that it's not highly regulated and diseased animals can easily slip into the mix (bone meal is also often used in animal feed as a filler, further contaminating the food supply).
before anyone was aware of the problem, it was assumed that autoclaving surgical instruments would sterilize them. however, prions are resistant to the level of heat that's used (they can even survive high doses of radiation), so reused instruments were also responsible for many infections.