>From the Sept.Oct issue of "Spectrum -  The Wholistic News Magazine" (to
subscribe email: <wholenews@@msn.com>) I found the following article called
"Brains in Your Burger":

Best, Peter
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"In early 1996, British scientists reported that ten people in that country
had come down with a new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and the victim's
brain lesions resembled those of cows with bovine spongiform encephalopathy
(BSE), commonly called mad cow's disease.  No one knows for sure how these
people got the disease, but evidence is mounting that it was from eating
the meat of infected cows.
The animal tissues most likely to transmit BSE are those of the spinal cord
and the brain.  National Institutes of Health (NIH) experts believe these
parts should be kept out of the food human chain, but two common
slaughterhouse practices make this unlikely.
In slaughterhouses, a pneumatic gun is shot at a cow's head with such force
that it splatters brain tissue into the cow's blood vessels.  In theory,
brain tissue could circulate anywhere in the cow's body, including the
muscles, which are subsequently turned into burgers and steaks.  According
to Tam Garland, a research veterinarian at Texas A&M, "The implications are
frightening."
The second way that central nervous system tissue can find its way into hot
dogs and other meat products is through Advanced Meat Recovery (AMR).
Employees remove as much meat as possible from carcasses by hand, then
metal cylinders are used to rub off another 1 1/2 pounds of meat from the
bones.  Unfortunately, parts of the spinal cord can be removed and mixed
with the meat.
Public health officials are concerned about the human form of BSE spreading
to the US., through, so far, not one case has turned up."

Based on information in Nutrition Action Newsletter, July/August 1997