Now here’s a topic that’s guaranteed to make folks squirm. A group of Brit scientists think they’ve discovered the root cause of their country’s recent bout with Mad Cow disease. Cynics, upon hearing the proposed theory, might argue that this whole thing amounts to a massive deflection of blame to the brown nether world -
LONDON - Mad cow disease may have originated from animal feed contaminated with human remains washed ashore after being floated downriver in Indian funerals, British scientists said on Friday.…Professor Alan Colchester of the University of Kent in England says it may have been caused by the tons of animal bones and other tissue imported from India for animal feed which also may have contained the remains of humans infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).
…In a report in the Lancet medical journal, Colchester and his daughter Nancy, of the University of Edinburgh, explained that many human and animal corpses were disposed of in rivers in India in accordance with Hindu custom.
The remains washed ashore in poor areas where bone collectors work.
“We are aware of a considerable risk of the incorporation of human remains with the animal remains that are collected. They are processed locally and some have been exported. In 10 years, more than a third of a million tons of material from these areas was imported into the UK,” Colchester said.
Needless to say, other scientists advise that these are waters upon which one should tread lightly -
“Scientists must proceed cautiously when hypothesizing about a disease that has such wide geographic, cultural and religious implications,” Shankar said.
Your old, crazy aunty from back in da homeland may have found yet another way to haunt her Western son from beyond the grave. 
