bovine spongiform encephalopathy

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A fatal degenerative brain disease of cattle, caused by a prion that can be transmitted to humans who consume infected beef.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun pathology, neurology A fatal, neurodegenerative disease of cattle, which is transmissible to humans through misshaped prion proteins, caused by eating infected tissues.