Questions over the Mad Cows Disease

In 1988, a study in the UK declared that the agent responsible for BSE was transmitted from scrapie-containing sheep products that were fed to the cattle. The UK Government banned those products subsequently, and it appears that in practice they were eliminated by 1990. Due to the incubation time for the disease, only by 1992 did the incidence of BSE stop to grow, declining afterwards.
  1. Why did the press hysteria start only in 1993 and peaked in 1996?
  2. Did we see health measures being taken anywhere to trace the presence of the ethiological agents (prions) in human populations presumably due to eating bovine products before 1992?
  3. What is the real extent of the danger of prion transmission today?
  4. Why nobody mentions the comparison between muscle (for meat) and milk in terms of prion accumulation?
  5. Is it correct to apply the term infection in the case of prion transmission?
  6. Why does biotechnology research hail the appearance of a new strain of the (until now essentially genetic) Creutzfeld-Jacob disease?
  7. What are the experimental results of applying BSE prions to transgenic mice containing the normal human prion gene? (you could check NATURE, 378(6559): 779-783.)
  8. If the public does not eat bovine meat, will the soya bean industry benefit from that?
  9. Is it good for the governments to have the public terrified by the possibility of BSE or any other disease being transmitted to humans?
  10. Will we see the day when bovine non-dairy products are accessible only to those wiling to pay for the extra price of a 100% proof BSE-free certification?