Wikipedia says that perhaps 400,000 BSE-infected cows entered the human food chain in the 1980′s(mostly in Europe), and there have been a mere 176 recorded cases of the disease infecting humans. The disease might take years to surface in the human body, but I’d think that more than 176 people would have died from that massive contamination of the food supply by now. Maybe a bunch of people had it, but died of old age before the disease could surface?

It’s worth noting that the use of grass feed in Australia, and the large percentage of American cattle that eat soybean feed instead of animal biproducts, reduce the chances of BSE surfacing in those countries. Tests for every cow should be implemented in America, but the restrictions on the kind of beef that can currently be imported into Japan(age of cows slaughtered, certain cuts of meat) are such that the chance of BSE meat entering Japan from America are close to zero. Yet major stores, consumers, and the media still buy into the hysteria.