Mad cow disease is 100 percent fatal. In cows, it shows up within 3 to 5 years. In humans, though, it can take decades before symptoms are apparent. There are no symptoms until the last stage, when the brain begins to rot and dementia sets in.

These are issues John Stauber, founder and executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy in Madison and author of “Mad Cow USA,” spoke on in his Forum presentation “How Now, Mad Cow?” Thursday night in Zorn Arena.

Mad cow disease first showed up in Great Britain in the 1980s, when feed producers started mixing fats and proteins from slaughterhouse waste into cattle feed to save money, Stauber said.

Diseased cattle are then fed to healthy cattle, thereby infecting them, he said. When people consume this meat, they may become infected as well.

The disease is most commonly spread through blood, and one way to contract it is by receiving a blood transfusion from someone with the disease, Stauber said.

He also spoke of the ways to stop mad cow disease. Britain stopped feeding its cattle animal byproduct, but that practice hasn’t stopped in the United States.

In December 2003, the first case of mad cow disease was reported in Washington, and since then the United States and the USDA have done virtually nothing to stop the spread, Stauber said.

Junior Maren Lee said she was stunned by Stauber’s presentation.

“I was really shocked (to learn) about how even though the U.S. government knows about this problem even today, they’re not taking preventative measures,” she said.

The United States manages the disease in another way that doesn’t include science or agriculture, but uses public relations, Stauber said. Public relations is meant to be invisible, he said, and only protects the corporations.

Stauber said before he wrote the book he had no expertise in mad cow disease; his interests were writing about propaganda.

Phil Johnson, who introduced Stauber at the Forum, is a childhood friend and said even when he was young, “(Stauber) had a passion to dig into the big issues of the day.”

After Stauber finished speaking, he took questions from the audience. One audience member asked if there was a correlation between mad cow disease and Alzheimer’s.

Stauber replied that one in four cases that were diagnosed as Alzheimer’s are incorrect. If an autopsy is done, it is sometimes found to be another dementia disease, but whether or not it is mad cow has yet to be determined.

The solution to mad cow disease isn’t a secret, Stauber said. “We’ve known what to do about it for a decade and a