Maternal transmission:If maternal transfer occurred, as with scrapie, the BSE outbreak would continue.

- Infected cattle are considered to be non-infectious when alive although up to 10% of calves may become infected from their mothers (perhaps in utero or by colostrum).

- In a survey of calves born to mothers which developed BSE within 6 months of calving 42/273 developed histological BSE by their 7th birthday compared to 13/273 from normal dams. This study was flawed because stock were all fed RDP. The normal calves would have been infected by RDP but having a BSE mother further increases the chance by 29/273 ie 10% ( page 126, Vet Rec, Aug 10th 1996).

- Maternal transmission at 10% in one generation would result in less than 1% maternal transmission at the next generation and so the disease becomes self limiting once RDP is absolutely excluded.