Health Officials Avoid "C" Word as CJD Cluster Fears Grow in Indiana

[donsu]

http://counterpunch.com/rosenberg06262007.html


Mad Cow in God's Country


Public health officials in Indiana are busy doing what Idaho public health officials did two years ago: claiming a cluster of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) victims is a mere coincidence.

If the four who died of CJD since January in Allen County in northeast Indiana--five if you count a death in Lynnville in 2005--had the sporadic version of CJD which strikes one in a million and has no clear cause then it's bad luck, a tragedy and Something We Need To Study Further.

But if the Indiana patients had variant CJD (vCJD) caused by something in their environment or lifestyle like the four letter word everyone is avoiding?

Let's just say this is why "food disparagement laws" were slapped on the books after US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey "disparaged" hamburgers on her TV show in 1998. To protect ranches, packers, big food processors and agribusiness interests from economic collapse if their products are found to sicken and kill.

Ever wonder why the Texas and Alabama ranches that produced mad cows in 2004 and 2006 were allowed to remain anonymous? And keep doing business? The grocery stores and restaurants in California that SERVED meat from the first US mad cow from Washington state in 2003? Thank your state law makers.

-long snip explaining why and how our meat isn't checked for mad cow-

In the report, a patient who died of CJD was said to not have the variant kind because the wild game he ate "did not originate from known CWD-endemic areas." Anyone hear of the word "yet"?

But Ronele Hicks, Patrick Hicks' widow says he WASN'T too old for vCJD and had not traveled to the UK or undergone surgical risks either.

"If it's from beef, am I next?" she asks pointing out that she and Patrick ate the same meals for 22 years.

Or, if the CJD was genetically linked as the government has implied, should she worry about her sons?

The families of the Indiana and Idaho patients are voicing similar fears while public health officials prattle on about there being no risk of catching the disease through ordinary person-to-person contact. And how people shouldn't worry about using the same surgical instruments used on the patients.

What about eating the same foods?
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how much of a gambler are you?

[redqueen]

1. I'm sure glad they won't allow any ranchers to test all their cattle.

Wouldn't want anyone getting alarmed by false positives now, would we?

[mainegreen]

2. Could be the beef. Could be the deer.

Might be both.
:shrug:

[nebenaube]

3. I'm not sure of the surgical protocols...

but in neurology if a patient is known to have CJD then any electrodes and sensors are destroyed after use.

[Javaman]

4. Wasn't CJD rare once upon a time?

sigh. I eat only grass fed beef but I only started doing that about 4 years ago.

More depressing news from the lack of ability administration*.

[KT2000]

5. Clusters are always coincidence

Whether it is CJD or toxic contamination, the script is always the same - coincidence.
The employment future for all these so-called public health people, CDC, EPA, local folks is in corporate-america. No one wants to kill the goose that lays these golden eggs!!