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Previous Volume 348:2695-2696 June 26, 2003 Number 26 Next

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By Maxime Schwartz. Translated by Edward Schneider. 238 pp. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2003. $24.95. ISBN 0-520-23531-2.

In How the Cows Turned Mad, Maxime Schwartz recounts the history of the prion diseases, or subacute spongiform encephalopathies, as if writing a mystery. Schwartz refers to all the prion diseases under one rubric, "The Disease," as if a single criminal with many disguises were active. This story has truly been an exceptional one, with events that have dramatically and unexpectedly affected the economy, public health, and the political scene.

We now know that there are a number of subacute spongiform encephalopathies of animals (e.g., scrapie and "mad cow disease," or bovine spongiform encephalopathy) and of humans (e.g., kuru and . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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