the article goes on to discuss the reluctance by pathologists and mortuary workers to autopsy and embalm the victims [which incidentally reminded me of the book stiff - highly recommended reading]. as much as we might want to poke fun at idaho as a state, this is really horrible news and i hope they put every effort into investigating what may be causing the disease. i know that idaho has a lot of beef manufacturing - "Livestock and livestock products account for over 35% of annual agricultural income. Cattle, sheep, and pigs are raised primarily on the S plain. Idaho typically ranks first nationally in potato production and is usually third as a producer of sugar beets." - according to the almanac.
9 Cases of Brain-Wasting Disease in Idaho
BOISE, Idaho - 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 be conclusively diagnosed only with an autopsy, which did not take place.
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."
Normally, sporadic CJD only strikes about one person in a million each year, with an average of just 300 cases per year in the United States, or just over one case a year in Idaho. Over the past two decades, the most cases reported in Idaho in a single year has been three.
Until this year.
Of the nine suspected cases reported so far in 2005, three tested positive for an infectious disease of the nervous system, though more tests are pending to determine if the fatal illness was in fact sporadic CJD. Four apparent victims were buried without autopsies. Two suspected cases tested negative.
Still, federal and state health officials are stopping just short of calling the Idaho cases a "cluster," waiting for final test results from the victims who got autopsies.
but supposedly this variant of the disease is not mad cow disease. hmm. in the meantime, i shall protect my brain from other grey-matter munching by doing my sudokus!
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