Quote:
Originally Posted by Mohoender
You are right about that one but you don't get it by eating human flesh. You get it if you eat viscera (Intestin, heart, brain...). Therefore, you take a risk only if you plan to make haggis from human livestocks  .
From what I remebered it was studied by an Australian scientist but I don't recall hiss name. Help wanted from the Aussies please. 
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/kuru/kuru.htm |
Actually, you get Kuru mostly by eating the less-desirable parts of the brain (cerebellum, hindbrain, brain stem) -- the less-tasty parts. That's why Kuru historically affects women more than men -- they're lower on the totem pole as far as food distribution. The Mad Cow reference was simply meant to illustrate that scientists believe that prions are responsible for both -- but in Kuru, the prions are produced by a bacteria.