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You are wrong.  Mad Cow does not occur "because industrial farms feed cows other cows".  Yes, it can be amplified (see below) when such practices are followed, but it will only occur if the feed animal was previously infected.  Such infections are usually transmitted from one species to another – not from one species to itself (see below).  It may seem like a quibbling point, but it is true nonetheless.  The real issue is not whether laws exist to prevent such an outbreak, but whether they're being enforced and who is lying about what.  Check out these statements issued by the FDA prior to the latest discovery of Mad Cow in the United States:

"The outbreak in the United Kingdom may have started from the feeding of scrapie-contaminated sheep meat-and-bone meal to cattle.  Scrapie is a disease of sheep that is related to BSE [(Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)] in cattle.  There is strong evidence that the outbreak in cattle was amplified in the United Kingdom by feeding rendered bovine meat-and-bone meal to young calves.  The nature of the transmissible agent in BSE is not known.  Currently, the most accepted theory is that the agent is a modified form of a normal cell surface component known as a prion protein.  Why or how this substance changes to become disease-producing is still unknown.  Prions are resistant to common treatments, such as heat, to reduce or eliminate its infectivity or presence.

"...to prevent BSE from entering the United States, firm restrictions were placed on the importation of live ruminants and ruminant products including meat, meat-and-bone meal, offals, and glands from countries where BSE was known to exist.  These restrictions were later extended to include importation of ruminants and certain ruminant products not only from BSE-positive countries, but also countries thought to be at high risk for BSE, even if the disease hadn't been identified in those countries.

In addition, FDA prohibits the use of most mammalian protein in the manufacture of animal feeds given to ruminants because this kind of feeding practice is believed to have initiated and amplified the outbreak of BSE in the United Kingdom."

"It is believed that BSE is spread when cattle eat animal feed that contains the mammalian protein from other infected rendered animals.  FDA, with its feed ban, has restricted the use of rendered mammals in ruminant feed."

Also, your screed against vegetarianism has prompted me to forward this link to you.  As a man who enjoys meats, I found this article to be the best I've read on the subject.  Enjoy!

http://orion.oac.uci.edu/~cohenp/food/animalsplace.pdf

I apologize for the misunderstanding. I never meant to say that cannibal cows get mad cow because of the cannibalism. The spread of mad cow is not just due to the feeding of cow remains to other cows but of any farm animal remains to other farm animals. I guess the point I should make is that if an animal is an herbivore, it should be fed as one.

As for the cross-species infection, it's important to note that there is considerable evidence that mad cow can infect humans. In humans, the disease seems to be variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). Another similar spongiform disorder is kuru, a disease that ravaged cannibals in New Guinea. However, it was not the cannibalism that caused kuru, but the cannibalism spread it.

We certainly do agree that the conditions in which animals are kept and slaughtered is pretty nasty and is causing horrible problems for the animals and putting humans at risk. I do think that eating more organic meat will be a good resolution for 2004.

Thank you for the clarification.