“Probably nothing,” says Dr. Howe. “Collagen is extracted from the skin of the cow. The particle that transmits mad-cow disease, prion, transmits it through nerve tissue. So you’d really have to eat the meat to become infected.”
What’s tricky is that even though all bovine-based injectibles are put through many precautions and inactivation processing steps to eliminate the possibility of transmitting infections, prion doesn’t respond to typical viral and bacterial interventions. That’s because, while prion reproduces and transmits BSE like a virus, it isn’t exactly a virus. And it’s not a bacterium, either. That’s what makes it so scary.
“Prion is it’s own category of particle,” says Patricia Wexler, MD, also of Wexler Dermatology in Manhattan.
So even though there doesn’t seem to be a risk of transmitting BSE through cow collagen, “I wouldn’t do it,” says Dr. Howe. “The prion remains infectious even after processing.”
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