String Theory: Violins and Mad Cow Disease

I don't even know what to say to this:

Musicians have warned that the works of Purcell, Handel, Vivaldi and Bach may never again be heard as their composers intended – because of EU rules to stop people catching "mad cow disease" from their instruments. 

Regulations which tightly control the use of certain types of animal tissue are unwittingly threatening the centuries-old technique of making musical instrument strings out of beef gut. 

The craft is covered by the same strict controls on raw materials from cows, even though campaigners say that to catch Creutzfeldt – Jakob disease, (CJD) – the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy – from violin or cello strings from an infected animal you would need to eat several metres of them.

I do think the word "unwittingly" is all too accurate.  Anyway, have you ever heard of anyone trying to eat violin strings? I mean, I know there's that romantic stereotype of "the starving artist," but this is ridiculous.