Foreign Body

Foreign Body refers to episode 4 of the Season 3 of the television series Forensic Files which was broadcast for the first time on October 22, 1998.

Plot summary
Between 1986 and 1989, a disease swept through British cattle herds. The disease came to be known as the Mad-cow disease. Scientist began to suspect that this was somehow related to a human illness.

A California neurologist, Dr. Stanley B. Prusiner, said that both humans and animals were suffering from mutated proteins known as prions. When prions are transmitted from an infected host to a new host, they convert normal proteins into prions. Therefore, it’s possible for a prion to be transmitted from a cow to a person through beef consumption.