A human form of the disorder, called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, short-circuits the central nervous system and has been linked to eating infected beef.

On March 20, 1996, the news that ten young people had contracted CJD from eating infected beef shook England and all of Europe.

If you took TME as a model for predicting the human consequences of eating infected beef, England could literally lose an entire generation to the disease.

He estimated that 100,000 Britons might already have eaten infected beef.

People are believed to have contracted the disease from eating infected beef.

When people contract it from eating infected beef, the disease is called variant C.J.D.

But he cautioned that members of the public, already worried about the possibility of becoming ill from eating infected beef, should not overreact.

At least 107 people, most of them from Britain, have died or are dying from the disease, which has been linked to infected beef.

In volunteer studies with infected beef symptoms appeared 3-6 hours after eating.

It was the nation's first reported case of the disease, which can be fatal to people who eat infected beef.