French officials confirmed in January 2005 that a goat culled in 2002 had carried bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), marking the first documented case of the disease in a non-cattle species raised for human consumption. Scientists had long considered the possibility theoretically, but no confirmed instance had previously been recorded.
BSE emerged in Britain during the 1990s, devastating the country's cattle sector. Authorities destroyed roughly 180,000 head of cattle to contain the outbreak, and EU member states imposed import bans that were later lifted. The crisis cost billions in culls and farm subsidies. In 1996, evidence first emerged linking the consumption of BSE-infected beef to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans, a fatal brain disorder caused by a malformed prion protein that degrades brain tissue over time.
By early 2005, Britain had recorded 148 vCJD deaths. France reported nine, Ireland two, and Canada, Italy, and the United States one each. Italy had also confirmed more than 100 BSE cases in cattle since mandatory EU testing began in 2001; a 27-year-old Sicilian woman became that country's first vCJD fatality in August 2003.
A central uncertainty has been the disease's incubation period, which some researchers estimated could reach 30 years, making it difficult to assess the full scale of human exposure. Japan, the only Asian country to confirm BSE cases, began screening every cow slaughtered for consumption in October 2001.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in January 2005, in its own words.