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Wed Dec 23, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM PST
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| "More people could have 'mad cow disease' than previously thought. Whoa - what? I always thought it was a huge blessing that such a small number of people actually died from vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the human version of mad cow). Think about it. A huge population of infected U.K. cattle and a nation of 55 million people, most of whom probably eat beef. And the human death toll was in the low hundreds. But now scientists are reconsidering that.
The Guardian article discusses 2 types of genetic makeups - MM homozygous and MV heterozygous. Until now, all of the people with vCJD were MM homozygous. Now a 30-year-old man just succumbed to vCJD and he's MV heterozygous. They say that might be a problem because:
In some other human prion diseases, such as kuru - thought to be linked to cannibalism in Papua New Guinea - people who are MV heterozygous have incubated the disease for longer than those who are MM homozygous before symptoms have shown. Some MV heterozygous patients are reported to have incubated kuru for over 50 years.
The only bright spot here is that the projected number of people who might die of vCJD is still relatively low. 166 people have died in the UK so far, and a projected 350 more in this new group may still die of it. |
| Jill Richardson :: Is There More Bad Mad Cow News Still to Come? |
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