9 cases of brain-wasting disease in Idaho

Boston.com/AP ^ | October 17, 2005 | Rebecca Boone

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

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.

[RockinRight]

Brain-wasting disease?

Is that the Mental Disorder Savage talked about in his book?

[nuconvert]

pong

[bdfromlv]

also known as liberalism.

[SeaBiscuit]

From 1 case of CJD to 9 'suspected cases is indeed alarming. Lets hope 'suspected' doesn't prove positive.

[Semper Paratus]

That may explain why Napoleon Dynamite was filmed in Idaho.

[theDentist]

...she wanted two things: His recovery and to know what made him sick. ... The disease can be conclusively diagnosed only with an autopsy, which did not take place.

Ummm, all I can ask is "Why?" I mean, I can't blame anyone for not requesting an autopsy. But considering the long-range implications, I think it should have taken place.

[Cvengr]

I don't know which symptom was more devestating, the stumble in the workshop or the reading of democratic socialist ramblings.

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

"Ummm, all I can ask is "Why?" I mean, I can't blame anyone for not requesting an autopsy. But considering the long-range implications, I think it should have taken place."

It is explained in the complete article.

[PissAndVinegar]

This is just factless scaremongering. It may be true but the facts just aren't there. 2 critical points:

-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.

-The disease can be conclusively diagnosed only with an autopsy, which did not take place.

So that's 0 conclusive, 2 definitely negative, 3 possible and 4 never to be known (unless they dig up the graves)

[I'm ALL Right!]

If the meat is fully cooked, it still doesn't destroy the CJD, does it?

[pabianice]

More Mad Liberal desease?

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

Nope. Cooking it does nothing to prions.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/mad-cow-disease.htm

[Revolting cat!]

Mad cow? Another Hitlery thread?

[LizardQueen]

I wonder if any of the 9 people were elk hunters or elk eaters.

LQ

[Gritty]

If the meat is fully cooked, it still doesn't destroy the CJD, does it?

No. And neither does autoclaving surgical instruments. This stuff is persistent.

[sure_fine]

KARNACK, Texas — Under a blue November sky, in the piney woods of East Texas, near the western finger of Caddo Lake, a soldier lies dying.

Staff Sgt. James Alford, who until April called Fort Campbell home, appears to sleep. His chest rises and falls. Sometimes his eyes blink open, and he smiles. But make no mistake, the monster within, the strange, silent disease that has felled him, remains in control.

The unyielding malady is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a rare and fatal brain disorder that leads to progressive dementia and neuromuscular deficits. It assaults the brain in a manner similar to what happens to cattle infected with ''mad cow'' disease.

http://www.tennessean.com/local/archives/03/11/42208096.shtml

---

Brain-wasting disease kills 2 Idaho women

BOISE, Idaho (AP) - Preliminary tests on the remains of two Idaho women show they died of the brain-wasting illness Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but additional tests are needed to determine whether it was the naturally occurring form or the variant related to mad cow disease.

Idaho Department of Health and Welfare officials announced the findings Wednesday after notifying the families of the women, one of whom was in her 60s and lived in Twin Falls County and the other who was previously identified by her family as 53-year-old Kathy Isenberg of St. Maries. Because of privacy restrictions, state health officials do not release names of individuals suspected of dying from the disease, which can only be conclusively diagnosed post-mortem.

The results bring to three the number of confirmed deaths this year in Idaho due to diseases related to "prions," or malformed proteins. Earlier this year, tests by the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western University in Ohio determined that another Twin Falls County woman had died from a prion-related disease believed to be Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2005/09/29/build/nation/92-idaho-deaths.inc

http://www.google.com/search?q=Brain-wasting+disease&btnG=Google+Search

---

State struggles to rein elk illness 1,000 with brain-wasting disease will be destroyed in latest effort
September 21, 2001 The Denver Post by Theo Stein

About 1,000 elk on three Colorado ranches are under quarantine and will be destroyed because the herds are infected with chronic wasting disease.
Concerned state agriculture officials are scrambling to contain the fatal brain-wasting malady one week after placing private elk herds in Stoneham, Longmont and Del Norte under quarantine for up to five years.

The 700-head Stoneham herd, east of Sterling, and the 31-head Longmont herd are in an area where free-ranging mule deer have been infected for about four decades. But the elk trade has shipped the disease all the way down to Del Norte in the San Luis Valley. Russell George, director of Colorado's Division of Wildlife, said his concern now is preventing the spread of the disease into the state's world-renowned Western Slope elk and deer herds.

'We simply can't let it get away,' he said. 'What if we lose our deer and elk herds, or create such a concern that no one will want to hunt them? That's why we want the remedy to be sudden, dramatic and complete.'

Lab analysis showed the brain of a cow elk that died recently at the Del Norte ranch was infected, said Dr. Wayne Cunningham, the state veterinarian for the Department of Agriculture. None of the 300 other elk in that herd have developed symptoms, which include unsteadiness, excessive slobbering, confusion and death.

But the progressive disease takes at least 18 months to develop, and there is no way to test live elk.

The Del Norte elk was bought from the Stoneham herd, which has been infected since 1995, wildlife officials now believe.

http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/destroyed92101.cfm

http://www.google.com/search?q=Brain-wasting+disease%2Bdeer&hl=en&lr=&newwindow=1&safe=off

[Abby4116]

I would have liked the ME to have tried a little harder to talk her into an autopsy/cremation. If there have been 9 cases this year and previously only one case, confirmation of the disease should be important since it affects the public at large.

[Delta 21]

Yep. Non story hits the panic button!!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

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.

Another article that makes no sense. If she wanted to know what killed him, why didn't she authorize an autopsy?