CDC Funds Center for Mad Cow
The National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University is getting $27.5 million from the Centers for Disease Control--enough to continue its work for another five years. The Cleveland Plain Dealer's Sarah Jane Tribble wrote that:
"The center became a national hot spot when mad cow disease, which is the newest strain of 
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, hit global headlines several years ago. Hospitals nationwide send suspected cases to Cleveland to be tested. And earlier this year the center was part of an international study that announced a new prion protein that may provide insight into how the brain functions with the disease.
"Mad cow disease is the best known of several brain-wasting diseases for humans and animals thought to be associated with malformed proteins called prions. Another disorder in this family includes chronic wasting disease, which has infected Wisconsin deer.
"Since 1997, neurologists and pathologists have sent brain tissue and spinal specimens from nearly 3,000 individuals to Case, which confirmed about 1,500 cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Pierluigi Gambetti, center director, said.
"To date, Gambetti said the center has not found any cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from eating contaminated beef, elk or deer meat in the United States. "But we have to keep looking because otherwise we may indeed miss it," he said. "
Having the Cleveland center to call upon may be timely for Japan, which just discovered its 34th case of mad cow disease, and Canada, which turned up its 11th case of BSE since 2003.
The National Prion center was founded in 1997 and is the only one of its kind in the United States.
