All the researchers are all UK based, and the UK became verrrry interested in prion diseases due to a very bad habit UK agriculture had gotten into of incorporating culled animals (other cattle, which furthered the spread, but the ultimate cause was likely grinding up sheep infected with scrapies, an ovine spongiform encephalopathy) supplementary cattle feed for animals later eaten by humans which led to the CJD outbreak in the UK. European agriculture also had a similar bad habit, but maybe less sheep or scrapies or something?
France probably imported British beef and so were affected also. They certainly banned it the longest afterwards.
And I was about to do the usual Kiwi thing of "Just let the cows eat grass, duh", but every Western country tends to supplementary feed dairy cows, including mine, except we prefer to use palm kernel, thus promoting deforestation in Borneo, yay!
But it turns out a lot of British beef comes from their dairy herds, so "just feed the beef cattle grass" wouldn't have helped.
Those are hazmat, contaminated with heavy metals among many other things, and need to be disposed of in specific ways - none of which involve consumption.
France probably imported British beef and so were affected also. They certainly banned it the longest afterwards.
And I was about to do the usual Kiwi thing of "Just let the cows eat grass, duh", but every Western country tends to supplementary feed dairy cows, including mine, except we prefer to use palm kernel, thus promoting deforestation in Borneo, yay!
But it turns out a lot of British beef comes from their dairy herds, so "just feed the beef cattle grass" wouldn't have helped.