SCIENTISTS in Britain are testing tissue from a French goat to see whether mad cow disease has been naturally transmitted to another species for the first time.

Analysis on parts of the goat's brain would be carried out over the next few weeks at the European Union reference laboratory in Weybridge, south England, a health department spokeswoman said.

French scientists believe the goat contracted a strain of scrapie - from the transmissable spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) family of diseases - which is indistinguishable from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease.

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Source: news.com.au, From correspondents in London
October 31, 2004

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