Bovine spongiform encephalopathy revealed how systemic failures in the food chain can generate massive animal suffering, with lasting lessons for welfare-conscious livestock policy.
BSE caused severe and prolonged neurological suffering in affected cattle — a degenerative brain disease causing progressive loss of coordination, hypersensitivity to touch and sound, and eventual paralysis. The disease had an incubation period of 2-8 years, meaning cattle were silently infected for years before clinical signs appeared. The cull response, while necessary from a public health perspective, caused the suffering and death of millions of animals. The root cause — feeding animal protein from potentially infected sources to cattle — reflected industrial practices that prioritised cost over biological appropriateness. The BSE crisis fundamentally reshaped European feed regulations and remains a cautionary lesson about systemic risks in intensive animal production.