Mad cow caused by human remains?

Two scientists propose that the first case of mad cow disease may have been caused by human remains in the animals' food. Alan Colchester of the University of Kent and Nancy Colchester of the University of Edinburgh published their findings in the current issue of medical journal The Lancet. From News@Nature:

(The researchers) point out that during the 1960s and 1970s Britain imported hundreds of thousands of tonnes of whole and crushed bones and animal carcasses. These were used for fertilizer and to feed livestock.

Nearly 50% of these imports came from Bangladesh, where peasants gathering animal materials may have also picked up human remains, the researchers say....

Religious customs in Bangladesh and surrounding areas mean that many corpses are disposed of in rivers. People may have collected remnants from such bodies when foraging for animal carcasses, the Colchesters argue in The Lancet. Any prions in these corpses might then have caused mad cow disease.

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)