Nbadan
10-17-2005, 11:20 PM
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - From the moment Joan Kingsford first saw her husband stagger in his welding shop, she wanted two things: His recovery and to know what made him sick.
She got neither. Alvin Kingsford, 72, died recently of suspected sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal brain-wasting illness. The disease can only be conclusively diagnosed with an autopsy, which Kingsford declined to allow.
State and federal health officials are trying to get to the bottom of nine reported cases of suspected sporadic CJD in Idaho this year. Sporadic, or naturally occurring, CJD differs from the permutation dubbed variant CJD, which is caused by eating mad-cow-tainted beef and has killed at least 180 people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe since the 1990s.
"One thing is very clear in Idaho - the number seems to be higher than the number reported in previous years," said Dr. Ermias Belay, a CJD expert with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "So far, the investigations have not found any evidence of any exposure that might be common among the cases."
more: Las Vegas Sun (http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2005/oct/17/101708039.html)
How much does anyone want to bet that those catching this mind-wasting disease have been eating wild deer or elk meat? CWJ is out of contol in a lot of areas. I've even heard of locales where they're considering mass kills of deer to eliminate the disease, and then repopulating from clean herds. Things are going to get bad for hunters down the line if a workable solution isn't found.
She got neither. Alvin Kingsford, 72, died recently of suspected sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal brain-wasting illness. The disease can only be conclusively diagnosed with an autopsy, which Kingsford declined to allow.
State and federal health officials are trying to get to the bottom of nine reported cases of suspected sporadic CJD in Idaho this year. Sporadic, or naturally occurring, CJD differs from the permutation dubbed variant CJD, which is caused by eating mad-cow-tainted beef and has killed at least 180 people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe since the 1990s.
"One thing is very clear in Idaho - the number seems to be higher than the number reported in previous years," said Dr. Ermias Belay, a CJD expert with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "So far, the investigations have not found any evidence of any exposure that might be common among the cases."
more: Las Vegas Sun (http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/thrive/2005/oct/17/101708039.html)
How much does anyone want to bet that those catching this mind-wasting disease have been eating wild deer or elk meat? CWJ is out of contol in a lot of areas. I've even heard of locales where they're considering mass kills of deer to eliminate the disease, and then repopulating from clean herds. Things are going to get bad for hunters down the line if a workable solution isn't found.