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Correspondence

Nature 415, 115 (10 January 2002) | doi:10.1038/415115a

Theoretical models of sheep BSE reveal possibilities

John R. Krebs1, Robert M. May1 & Michael P. H. Stumpf1

  1. Department of Zoology, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK
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But we must remember that these theories are based on speculation, not on fact.

We do not yet know whether bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) entered the UK sheep population at the height of the epidemic among cattle and, if it did, what the likely effects would be or whether the BSE prion could have persisted in sheep. The one study aimed at illuminating this question has collapsed in what might generously be called a failure of experimental protocol (see Nature 413, 760; 2001).