Associated Press
HOUSTON — A man from Great Britain who lived in Houston for four years
has been diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human
form of mad cow disease, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control confirmed
today.

The 30-year-old man was diagnosed with the second U.S. case of variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease because his symptoms began while he lived in
Houston.

Earlier this year, he returned to Great Britain, where his disease
progressed and he is now receiving medical treatment for the fatal illness.

The U.K. National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit in
Edinburgh, Scotland, informed the Atlanta-based CDC of the probable
variant CJD diagnosis and told the disease center the case would need to
be reported as a U.S. case.

The man was born in the United Kingdom and lived there from 1980-1996, a
period during which those living in the country were at risk of exposure
to beef products infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, more
commonly known as mad cow disease.

The infected man's temporary stay in the U.S. has been deemed "too brief
relative to what is known about the incubation period for variant CJD,"
the CDC said. It is believed he was infected in the United Kingdom
because the disease's incubation period can last years, sometimes
decades....

A total of 185 people from 11 countries have been diagnosed with variant
CJD since 1996. A majority of the cases — 158 — have been diagnosed in
Great Britain, 15 in France, three in Ireland and two in the United
States. Canada, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Saudi Arabia
and Spain have each also reported a case.

The initial U.S. case involved a woman from Great Britain who was living
in Florida. She died last year, Schonberger said.

"They have been having cases in the United Kingdom on a regular basis,"
he said. "From our perspective, this is just the continuation of the
ongoing outbreak in the United Kingdom."

Rest of article:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printsto...onicle/3476565
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Note to Beach Bungler Bob: 185 cases over ~10 years isn't an outbreak,
an epidemic, or the tip of some kind of iceberg. It's no doubt a
tragedy, but it's very much isolated both geographically (85.4% of all
diagnosed in the UK, and 100% of US reported cases involved Britons as
well; the UK's population is 0.94% of the world's population) and to a
specific time frame (1980-1996). The number of new cases in the UK
continues to *decline*, which isn't what one would expect if it were the
tip of some iceberg.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...610802,00.html
http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ew/2004/040513.asp#3