Foot & mouth disease .. why is it so feared? apparently it is not fatal for cattle nor contactable by humans?
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Hehe - you ask a good question!
Actually it can be fatal to cattle (and certain other animals), especially when they're young. But this is uncommon. Furthermore, we can't get it from eating infected meat, since our stomach acid quickly kills the virus.
Also, it is can be transmitted to humans, but this is exceptionally RARE, and we always get better.
So, yes, the disease doesn't pose a threat to us. What it does involve, however, is the slaughter of millions of pounds (dollars, etc.) worth of of cattle, so livestock farmers do often take a big knock.
But I suspect the main reason for the "foot & mouth hysteria" is that it plays to people's fears of infectious diseases, especially when the disease is so infectious (it's amongst the most infectious of all diseases affecting animals, including humans). Furthermore, there are the undertones in Britain of potential biological sabotage, which always piques people's interests.
If you're interested, I've posed a summary of foot and mouth disease here: http://medicguide.blogspot.com
Because the media likes to engage in fearmongering over anything they can.
Next time you get hungry for a big juicy steak ask a tourist to by you one.But remember staeks dont grow on trees,and maybe you should look into the foot and mouth diease its a pretty deadly virus,maybe you dont eat meat if you dont then one could say vegetable farmers are not important either
Well i thought that it was fatal to cattles as on the news the farmers have to burn their entire stock if cows(for Example).
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