The BSE crisis revealed how industrial food systems can impose catastrophic welfare harm on livestock and humans through systemic failures.
Cattle with BSE experience progressive neurological deterioration including loss of coordination, abnormal behavior, and eventual inability to stand over months before death. The suffering caused by the epidemic resulted from the industrialization of cattle feeding without adequate precautionary assessment. The BSE crisis established the precautionary principle as essential in animal feed regulation and strengthened the case for welfare considerations in food system design.