Re: Irradiation and BSE (mad cow disease)

["Zack Clayton" <zack.clayton@epa.state.oh.us>]

Maury,  I just asked that question about a month ago and the responses I got off list was that:

1.  As a deformed protein, if you denature it enough to deactivate it, you would denature the other protein content also.
2.  One of the things that led to the discovery or description of prions was that they were not deactivated by ionizing radiation.
My thoughts - #1 above is why cooking the meat doesn't do any good.  Which is fine by me,  I like my steak blue and this won't be an argument for me to overcook it.




Zack Clayton
Ohio EPA - DERR
email:  zack.clayton@epa.state.oh.us
voice:  614-644-3066
fax:       614-460-8249
icq:       105931792

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