A NOVEL power saw that can strip the spines out of cattle and sheep carcasses should further cut the risk of infecting people with the agent that causes the fatal brain disease vCJD.
Spinal cord from cattle has been banned from food in Britain since 1996, when the link between mad cow disease (BSE) and vCJD was established. If an animal is incubating BSE, its spinal cord could harbour the defective prion protein that causes the disease in both animals and humans.
Abattoirs normally use a bandsaw to split the carcasses of cattle in half. But if the saw cuts…
