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Episode details

Radio 4,23 Oct 2023,14 mins

1. Zombie Apocalypse

The Cows Are Mad

Available for over a year

Hidden deep in the heart of the Kent countryside is an abandoned factory with a dark past. In the 1980s and 1990s it processed tens of thousands of dead cows - some of which are thought to have been infected with a disease that would devastate British farming. Then, when early human cases of BSE began to emerge in people living close to the rendering plant, paranoia also infected Kent’s countryside communities. People wanted answers - but there were none. Today, science has failed to definitively answer two major questions about mad cow disease - where did it originally come from and how did humans get it? Written, presented and produced by Lucy Proctor.

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