Awasome Can Humans Get Mad Cow Disease By Eating Infected Beef References. Mad cow disease is the common name for a very rare and deadly brain disease. Mad cow disease is the popular name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse), a degenerative neurological disease affecting cattle as a.

Humans can contract a tse from eating certain kinds of meat from cattle infected with bse. A type of cjd called variant cjd (or vcjd) can be acquired by eating meat from cattle affected by a disease similar to cjd called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (bse) or, commonly, “mad cow” disease. Tissue from the infected cow’s central nervous system, including brain or spinal cord, is the most infectious part of a cow;