**6. Conclusions**

In order to maximize the economic profit from animal food production, humans made livestock animal's cannibals in the 1970s. Only a few years later, this backfired spectacularly, resulting in the rapid spread of infectious PrPSc through both the feed and food chains. These practices created a huge man-made disaster, mad cow disease, which went on to enter the human food chain through poor animal slaughtering and meat processing practices. The devastating impact of BSE on cattle has been called "a punishment from God" from which the global beef industry is only now beginning to recover. Although the negative impacts of the human version of mad cow disease, vCJD, are less significant, they continue to receive a great deal of publicity and the risk of recurrence of the disaster cannot be ignored. Most countries and areas have now enacted legislation to prohibit the use of SRM in the food and feed chain, and the goal of everyone concerned is to eventually eliminate the threat of BSE completely. Currently, through the strict implementation of feed bans and the enforcement of the regula‐ tions, both types of foodborne prion diseases appear to be under control. However, the prevention of prion diseases is not simply a matter of food or feed safety, but is also a significant factor affecting a number of political and economic issues. Effective detection methods for ruminant SRM in rendered feedstuffs are still lacking, as currently none of the available assays can effectively differentiate ruminant CNS tissue from that of non-ruminant animal species, or detect bovine CNS tissue in excessively processed (e.g., 133 °C for 20 min) meat and feed products. It is therefore vital to continue to conduct scientific research in this area if we are to gain a better understanding of these destructive prion diseases and develop more effective surveillance techniques for this disease in both humans and animals. We must take to heart this solemn lesson if we are to avoid another such punishment from God.
