Latest Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease Stories
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science CorrespondentWASHINGTON -- The muscles of deer affected by a mad cow-like disease carry the infectious prions that spread the illness, meaning that venison could potentially spread the agent to humans, researchers reported on Thursday.They said leg muscle tissue taken from mule deer with chronic wasting disease (CWD) infected specially bred mice when they were injected with the tissue.While stressing that was a long way from showing venison was infectious,...
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Findings from an animal study suggest that disease-cause prions can be spread via infected skeletal muscle from deer with chronic wasting disease (CWD) -- a wildlife illness related to mad cow disease. Whether CWD can be passed to humans is still unclear, but the present findings suggest that if this does occur, simply handling the meat of infected dear could pose a risk, senior author Dr. Glenn C. Telling, from the University of Kentucky in Lexington, and...
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan has confirmed that a 64-month-old cow that died last week in Hokkaido, northern Japan, had mad cow disease, the country's 22nd case, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Tuesday.The news comes just four days after Japan reimposed a ban on imports of U.S. beef that it put in place two years ago in response to fears about the disease.The ministry official said the carcass of the Holstein cow would be destroyed and would not enter the market.Japan only requires cattle...
Most people with a rare type of dementia called primary progressive aphasia (PPA) have a specific combination of prion gene variants, a new study shows. The study is the first to link the prion protein gene to this disorder. It was funded in part by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and appears in the December 2005 issue of the Annals of Neurology.[1] The researchers, led by James A. Mastrianni, M.D., Ph.D.,...
New Haven, Conn. "“ Research in Japan and at Yale University School of Medicine shows that infection with a weak strain of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD) prevents infection by more virulent strains and that the protection requires persistent replication by the infectious agent, but not misfolded prions. The "prion diseases" including Mad Cow Disease, scrapie and CJD have been in recent news because of their devastating effects on the brain and concern about transmission of the...
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The agent that causes mad cow disease, scrapie and chronic wasting disease in deer and elk may sometimes be spread through urine, Swiss researchers reported on Thursday. They found that, under certain conditions in mice, the deformed brain proteins known as prions that transmit the disease could be found in urine. "We tested whether chronic inflammatory kidney disorders would trigger excretion of prion infectivity...
By Keith Coffman DENVER (Reuters) - A moose killed by a hunter in northern Colorado has tested positive for chronic wasting disease, the first time the deadly affliction has been found outside of wild elk and deer herds, state wildlife officials said on Friday. Chronic wasting disease was previously been found only in wild deer and elk in 10 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. The fatal neurological disease eats away at the brains of infected animals and is similar to mad cow...
By Laura ZuckermanSALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Test results confirm a rare brain-wasting illness similar to mad cow disease claimed the life of a 53 year-old northern Idaho woman earlier this month, state health officials said on Wednesday.The results bring to three the number of confirmed cases this year in Idaho of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, an incurable illness involving a malformed protein that kills brain cells.Idaho officials believe a naturally occurring form of the disease is responsible...
PROVIDENCE, R.I. "” Two Brown Medical School biologists have figured out the fate of healthy protein when it comes in contact with the infectious prion form in yeast: The protein converts to the prion form, rendering it infectious. In an instant, good protein goes bad.This quick-change "mating" maneuver sheds important light on the mysterious molecular machinery behind prions, infectious proteins that cause fatal brain ailments such as mad cow disease and scrapie in animals and, in rare...
By Patricia Reaney LONDON (Reuters) - Mad cow disease may have originated from animal feed contaminated with human remains washed ashore after being floated downriver in Indian funerals, British scientists said on Friday. The cause of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which infected an estimated 2 million cattle during an epidemic in Britain, is unknown. It is thought to have resulted from cattle being fed material containing remains of sheep infected with...
