Originally posted by Savaric
They just need to keep shooting the cows with stronger and stronger antibiotics. Its not like microorginisms can evolve to resist them or anything.
Actually, this is very, very, very, very not true. One of the biggest concerns in the medical field right now is antibiotic-resistant bacteria, brought about by improper use of antibiotics. Bacteria very commonly evolve to resist antibiotics, and do so even more quickly when you use antibiotics when you shouldn't; the medicine kills off non-resistant bugs, letting the tough bugs survive to reproduce. This is why many antibiotics that worked back in the '60s hardly work at all today. Read up on MRSA (methicillin resistant staph aureus) if you want to know more.

(PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE: This is the same reason why doctors will tell you to take antibiotics for their full courses, even after you feel better. If you don't, you will just be killing off the weak bugs, letting the worse ones survive to come back later with a vengeance. So when they say to take an antibiotic for three weeks, take it for the whole three weeks - you've got to kill ALL the bacteria, not just most of them!)

But all that is moot to this discussion anyway, because mad cow disease isn't caused by a bacteria, but a prion (basically a protein gone wrong). Neither antibiotics nor anti-viral medications will help at all. Thus, the only defense against mad cow disease is not to get it in the first place.