Word: rohwer
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...same spread of the BSE pathogen. Making things even harder, scientists still can't agree on what that pathogen is--a first step in figuring out how to treat the disease if it does surface. "The only thing that stands between us and an epidemic," says Robert Rohwer, director of molecular virology at the VA Medical Center in Baltimore, "is unmitigated luck...
Ironically, the Nature paper generated concern in the U.S., where not one case of mad-cow disease has been diagnosed. "I hope we're not on the same course as the British," says Rohwer, "but we could be." What concerns Rohwer and others is that the U.S. agricultural industry, like its British counterpart, recycles animal scraps, turning them into both cattle feed and garden fertilizer. Should even one domestic cow develop the disease spontaneously--something that is known to occur in nature--the pathogen could quickly spread through U.S. herds...