UN Says Mad Cow Tests Working, Despite Outbreaks

UN Says Mad Cow Tests Working, Despite Outbreaks

Mon Feb 7,12:02 PM ET
Health - Reuters


UN Says Mad Cow Tests Working, Despite Outbreaks

Mon Feb 7,12:02 PM ET Health - Reuters


By Robin Pomeroy

ROME (Reuters) - Testing for mad cow disease is working in catching cases of the lethal brain-wasting disorder, the United Nations said on Monday, in the wake of several new discoveries of BSE-related cases.

An outbreak in Canadian cattle, the first incidence of a goat with the disorder and Japan's first death from the human variant, prompted the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization to release a statement aimed at allaying fears.

"The three cases in Canada and the one case in the US from an imported animal are isolated incidents," said FAO animal production expert Andrew Speedy. "These cases were detected because of the testing procedures that are now in place."

Drug battles human form of mad cow disease

From Macleans on "February 02, 2005:

Experimental treatment may have brought man back from the brink of death

As Canadians confront the possibility that the discovery of a fourth animal infected with mad cow disease is just the tip of the iceberg, there is welcome news from Britain of a possible treatment for the human form of the disease."

A 20-year-old man has been brought back from the brink of death after experimental treatment with pentosan polysulphate, a decades-old drug that has been used as a blood thinner and bladder medication.

Jonathan Simms, from Belfast, has been receiving the drug for two years and is now the only patient known to have survived three years after diagnosis of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Patients usually die within 18 months of diagnosis.

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