Expert Calling for British Coroners to Test for Mad-Cow
A British professor, and expert on "mad cow" disease, is calling on coroners to test for the presence of indicators of mad-cow disease in the deceased, according to a upi.com story. Professor John Collinge is a member of a government panel monitoring the progress of spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. According to the report, Collinge says that "without post-mortem tests for the infection it is impossible to get accurate information on how many people in Britain may be carrying it."
164 people in Britain are confirmed to have died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of mad cow. Currently, coroners are not required to conduct tests for the presence of the infectious agent. Understanding the breadth of the spread of the disease is an important component in designing and implementing protections from it. If deaths due to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are being missed due to a lack of testing, the 164 person figure may be less reliable, and therefore less useful.
