"Torsten Brinch" > wrote in message
...
> On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 03:00:20 -0600, "Jeff" > wrote:
>
> >
> >"Rubystars" > wrote in message
> gy.com...
>
> >> There's been speculation that many of the people who were diagnosed
with
> >> Alzheimer's in the US may have actually had CJD. I thought I read
> >>something
> >> about the brains of people who had died from Alzheimer's being studied
and
> >> the ones doing it finding out they had died of CJD, but I can't
remember
> >> where the article is now.
>
> >There is no proof what so ever that those inflicted with Alzheimer's had
in
> >fact CJD.
>
> We must be careful not to mix up things. There is a disease we can call
> CJD (classical CJD), and another distinct from it, called vCJD (variant
> CJD). Undoubtedly there have been people diagnosed with Alzheimer's
> who really died from CJD, but not likely any from vCJD. vCJD affects
> relatively young people.
>
> >There was one cow found to be diseased. They said millions would
> >die in England when they had their scare and they had thousands of
diseased
> >cattle. <snip>
>
> Pointedly one could say some said there was only a relatively few BSE
> clinical cases at one stage during the UK epizootic , with the case
> number appearing to be leveling out at a low prevalence. Downplaying
> it, so maybe it was no big deal, one could wait and see. However, they
> were sitting on a huge number of subclinical cases, the proverbial
> hidden part of the ice-berg they just could not see yet, and we are to
> be happy that some were sufficiently foresighted to act accordingly.

note that when people have their tonsils out, these are now, in many parts
of the UK if not all of it, tested for nvCJD.. The idea being that these
tissues are among the first parts to become infective and therefore will be
a useful marker as to the number of cases. So far none have come up infected

Jim Webster