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Notes -
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as "mad cow", which also appears as a very rare and fatal prion disease, vCJD in humans. This is believed to be caused by feeding cattle products to cows, which has been largely phased out since the peak of the disease in the early '90s.
For this reason, people who spent time in Europe in the '80s and '90s were, until recently, disallowed from giving blood.
Yes, and I was asking what humanity got wrong in this case. Was there a scientific consensus that feeding cattle products to cows was safe? Was it even researched thoroughly before BSE, or did no one care?
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Oh, did they lift that ban? Damn it, between that and the homo thing I'm running out of excuses.
I went to look it up, and it seems the American Red Cross changed their guidance just a few weeks ago. The change in FDA recommendation seems to have been proposed in January 2020, and presumably was glossed over given other major health news at the time.
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