CONFIRMED CASE OF vCJD IN THE USA VIA MIDDLE EAST

[flatfish]

Subject: CONFIRMED CASE OF VARIANT CREUTZFELDT JAKOB DISEASE (vCJD) IN THE UNITED STATES IN A PATIENT FROM THE MIDDLE EAST
Date: December 4, 2006 at 8:48 am PST
Confirmed Case of Variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) in the United States in a Patient from the Middle East

The Virginia Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announce the recent confirmation of a vCJD case in a U.S. resident. This is the third vCJD case identified in a U.S. resident. This latest U.S. case occurred in a young adult who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia and has lived in the United States since late 2005. The patient occasionally stayed in the United States for up to 3 months at a time since 2001 and there was a shorter visit in 1989. In late November 2006, the Clinical Prion Research Team at the University of California San Francisco Memory and Aging Center confirmed the vCJD clinical diagnosis by pathologic study of adenoid and brain biopsy tissues. The two previously reported vCJD case-patients in U.S. residents were each born and raised in the United Kingdom (U.K.), where they were believed to have been infected by the agent responsible for their disease. There is strong scientific evidence that the agent causing vCJD is the same agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, commonly known as mad cow disease).

Variant CJD is a rare, degenerative, fatal brain disorder that emerged in the United Kingdom in the mid-1990s. Although experience with this new disease is limited, evidence to date indicates that there has never been a case transmitted from person-to-person except through blood transfusion. Instead, the disease is thought to result primarily from consumption of cattle products contaminated with the BSE agent. Although no cases of BSE in cattle have been reported in Saudi Arabia, potentially contaminated cattle products from the United Kingdom may have been exported to Saudi Arabia for many years during the large U.K. BSE outbreak.

The current case-patient has no history of receipt of blood, a past neurosurgical procedure, or residing in or visiting countries of Europe. Based on the patient's history, the occurrence of a previously reported Saudi case of vCJD attributed to likely consumption of BSE-contaminated cattle products in Saudi Arabia, and the expected greater than 7 year incubation period for food-related vCJD, this U.S. case-patient was most likely infected from contaminated cattle products consumed as a child when living in Saudi Arabia (1). The current patient has no history of donating blood and the public health investigation has identified no risk of transmission to U.S. residents from this patient.

As of November 2006, 200 vCJD patients were reported world-wide, including 164 patients identified in the United Kingdom, 21 in France, 4 in the Republic of Ireland, 3 in the United States (including the present case-patient), 2 in the Netherlands and 1 each in Canada, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Spain. Of the 200 reported vCJD patients, all except 10 of them (including the present case-patient) had resided either in the United Kingdom (170 cases) for over 6 months during the 1980-1996 period of the large UK BSE outbreak or alternatively in France (20 cases).

As reported in 2005 (1), the U.S. National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University confirmed the diagnosis in the one previously identified case of vCJD in a Saudi resident. He was hospitalized in Saudi Arabia and his brain biopsy specimen was shipped to the United States for analysis. This earlier vCJD case-patient was believed to have contracted his fatal disease in Saudi Arabia (1).

1) Belay ED, Sejvar JJ, Shieh W-J, Wiersma ST, Zou W-Q, Gambetti P, Hunter S, Maddox RA, Crockett L, Zaki SR, Schonberger LB. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease death, United States. Emerg Infect Dis 2005, 11 (9):1351-1354.




Date: November 29, 2006
Content source: National Center for Infectious Diseases


http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/vcjd/other/vCJD_112906.htm


The Virginia Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announce the recent confirmation of a case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in a Virginia resident. There is no evidence to suggest that this case of vCJD was caused by anything the patient was exposed to while residing in the U.S. or that this situation represents a public health threat to any U.S. resident.

For more information on vCJD, visit CDC’s Web site at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/vcjd/other/vCJD_112906.htm.


http://www.vdh.virginia.gov/news/Alerts/vCJD.htm


sad day when the media does not even care enough to report this. ...


TSS

[flatfish]

----- Original Message -----
From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
Cc: BLOODCJD@YAHOOGROUPS.COM ; madcow@lists.iatp.org
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 6:14 PM
Subject: Saudi man has third vCJD case found in US


CJD WATCH MESSAGE BOARD
Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
Saudi man has third vCJD case found in US
Tue Dec 5, 2006 19:11
72.73.130.233



Saudi man has third vCJD case found in US
Dec 5, 2006 (CIDRAP News) – A third case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) has been reported in a US resident, but health officials believe he contracted the disease in Saudi Arabia when he was a child.

The patient is a young man who has lived in the United States since 2005 but was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, according to a Nov 29 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The man occasionally stayed in the United States for up to 3 months at a time since 2001 and made a shorter visit in 1989.

The brain-wasting disease is believed to be caused by eating meat products from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

The diagnosis was confirmed in late November by the Clinical Prion Research Team at the University of California San Francisco Memory and Aging Center, the CDC said. Researchers based their findings on study of the man's adenoid and brain biopsy tissues.

CDC officials declined today to list the man's condition or other details, citing his family's request for privacy.

The CDC said the man has no history of receiving blood, having neurosurgery, or living in or visiting European countries. The view that he was probably exposed during childhood is based on the record of a previously reported Saudi case-patient who was thought to have consumed BSE-contaminated meat in Saudi Arabia and on the fact that the incubation period for food-related vCJD is longer than 7 years, the agency said.

"This US case-patient was most likely infected from contaminated cattle products consumed as a child when living in Saudi Arabia," the CDC said.

The previous case of vCJD in a resident of Saudi Arabia was described in a 2005 Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID) report. The 33-year-old man was hospitalized in Saudi Arabia, and his brain biopsy specimen was sent to the US National Prion Disease Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University for confirmation. The report said the patient might have briefly visited the United Kingdom, though he likely contracted the disease in Saudi Arabia after eating BSE-contaminated cattle products imported from the United Kingdom.

The two previous vCJD cases in the United States involved people who were thought to have contracted the disease in their native Britain during the country's BSE outbreak in the 1980s and 1990s. One was a 30-year-old man who lived in Houston for 4 years before he was diagnosed with vCJD in 2005. The other was a 25-year-old woman who died in Ft Lauderdale in 2004; she had moved from England to Florida with her father in 1992. Neither patient was known to have had invasive procedures or have received blood, both of which are other possible transmission routes for vCJD.

According to the CDC, 200 people with vCJD have been reported worldwide, including 164 diagnosed in the United Kingdom, 21 in France, 4 in Ireland, 3 in the United States (including the current patient), 2 in the Netherlands, and 1 each in Canada, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, and Spain. Of all reported vCJD patients, all but 10 had lived either in the United Kingdom or France for at least 6 months between 1980 and 1996.

See also:

Nov 29 CDC report on a newly confirmed case of vCJD in a patient from the Middle East
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/vcjd/other/vCJD_112906.htm

September 2005 Emerging Infectious Disease report on vCJD confirmation in a Saudi Arabia resident
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol11no09/05-0371.htm

Nov 22, 2005, CIDRAP News article "Briton has second vCJD case found in US"
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/other/bse/news/nov2205vcjd.html

Jun 22, 2004, CIDRAP News article "Florida woman dies of probable vCJD"
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/other/bse/news/june2204vcjd.html



http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/other/bse/news/dec0506cjd.html



TSS

[flatfish]

##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################

Third case of vCJD reported in the United States
Editorial Team (eurosurveillance.weekly@hpa.org.uk), Eurosurveillance
editorial office

A clinical diagnosis of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) was
confirmed after brain biopsy investigations in a United States (US) resident
and reported in November [1]. The patient is a young man who grew up in
Saudi Arabia and lived in the US since late 2005. Before that he visited the
US once in 1989 and several times after 2001. He has never visited any
country in Europe or received a blood transfusion nor has he undergone any
neurosurgical procedure. This vCJD case is the third in a US resident. The
previous two patients both grew up in the United Kingdom (UK), and this is
where they were believed to have been infected [2].

In Saudi Arabia, the first and only previous case of vCJD was reported in
2005. This was suspected to be related to consumption of meat contaminated
with the prion agent which causes bovine spongiform encephalitis in cattle
(BSE). The European Food Safety Authority (http://www.efsa.org) has not
published a geographical BSE risk assessment for Saudi Arabia [3] and there
have been no cases of BSE in cattle reported by Saudi Arabia to the World
Organisation for Animal Health (http://www.oie.int). Although the UK is not
the only potential beef exporter to have had a BSE epidemic, it remains
plausible, subject to Saudi Arabia's import policy, that contaminated beef
was inadvertently imported from the UK to Saudi Arabia in the period before
1996 (when the EU banned the export of UK beef and cattle).

Based on this patient's history, the occurrence of a previously reported
case of vCJD in Saudi Arabia, and the expected length of the incubation
period for food-related vCJD, the most likely source of infection is thought
to be contaminated meat products the patient consumed as a child when living
in Saudi Arabia. The patient has no known history of donating blood, and
investigations have identified no risk of onwards transmission within the
US.

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was first identified in the United Kingdom
in the mid-1990s. As of November 2006, worldwide there have been 200 vCJD
cases: 164 patients in the United Kingdom, 21 in France, four in Ireland,
three in the US (including the present case), two in the Netherlands and one
each in Canada, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Spain [4]. All
patients, except 10 (including the present case) had lived either in the
United Kingdom (170 cases) or in France (20 cases). Evidence so far
indicates that the most probable source of infection in most cases was
consumption of meat products contaminated with the prion agent causing BSE.


References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Confirmed Case of Variant
Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) in the United States in a Patient from the
Middle East. (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/vcjd/other/vCJD_112906.htm)
Belay ED, Sejvar JJ, Shieh W-J, Wiersma ST, Zou W-Q, Gambetti P, Hunter S,
Maddox RA, Crockett L, Zaki SR, Schonberger LB. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease death, United States. Emerg Infect Dis 2005, 11 (9):1351-1354.
European Food Safety Authority . Geographical BSE Risk (GBR) assessments
covering 2000-2006. List of countries and their GBR level of risk as
assessed by the Scientific Steering Committee and the (EFSA). 1 August 2006.
(http://www.efsa.europa.eu/etc/medialib/efsa/science/tse_assessments/gbr_***
essments/summary_list_countries.Par.0001.File.dat/GBR_assessments_table_Over
view_assessed_countries_2002-2006.pdf)
Variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease. Current data – December 2006.
(http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/vcjdworld.htm)

http://www.eurosurveillance.org/ew/2006/061207.asp#2


>>>The patient is a young man who grew up in Saudi Arabia and lived in the
US since late 2005. Before that he visited the US once in 1989 and several
times after 2001. He has never visited any country in Europe or received a
blood transfusion nor has he undergone any neurosurgical procedure.<<<


Heaven forbid anyone suggest that this unlucky Soul was contaminated in the
USA from vCJD.
This would just be preposterous, wouldn't it $$$



i am reminded of a few things deep throat told me years ago;

================================================== ==========

CONTINUED

[flatfish]

i am reminded of a few things deep throat told me years ago;

================================================== ==========

The most frightening thing I have read all day is the
report of Gambetti's finding of a new strain of
sporadic cjd in young people.........Dear God, what in
the name of all that is holy is that!!!
If the US has different strains of
scrapie.....why????than the UK...then would the same
mechanisms that make different strains of scrapie here
make different strains of BSE...if the patterns are
different in sheep and mice for scrapie.....could not
the BSE be different in the cattle, in the mink, in
the humans.......I really think the slides or tissues
and everything from these young people with the new
strain of sporadic cjd should be put up to be analyzed
by many, many experts in cjd........bse.....scrapie
Scrape the damn slide and put it into
mice.....wait.....chop up the mouse brain and and
spinal cord........put into some more mice.....dammit
amplify the thing and start the damned
research.....This is NOT rocket science...we need to
use what we know and get off our butts and move....the
whining about how long everything takes.....well it
takes a whole lot longer if you whine for a year and
then start the research!!!
Not sure where I read this but it was a recent press
release or something like that:
I thought I would fall out of my chair when I read
about how there was no worry about infectivity from a
histopath slide or tissues because they are preserved
in formic acid, or formalin or formaldehyde.....for
God's sake........ Ask any pathologist in the UK what
the brain tissues in the formalin looks like after a
year.......it is a big fat sponge...the agent
continues to eat the brain ......you can't make slides
anymore because the agent has never stopped........and
the old slides that are stained with Hemolysin and
Eosin......they get holier and holier and degenerate
and continue...what you looked at 6 months ago is not
there........Gambetti better be photographing every
damned thing he is looking at.....

Okay, you need to know. You don't need to pass it on
as nothing will come of it and there is not a damned
thing anyone can do about it. Don't even hint at it
as it will be denied and laughed at..........
USDA is gonna do as little as possible until there is
actually a human case in the USA of the
nvcjd........if you want to move this thing along and
shake the earth....then we gotta get the victims
families to make sure whoever is doing the autopsy is
credible, trustworthy, and a saint with the courage of
Joan of Arc........I am not kidding!!!!
so, unless we get a human death from EXACTLY the same
form with EXACTLY the same histopath lesions as seen
in the UK nvcjd........forget any action........it is
ALL gonna be sporadic!!!

And, if there is a case.......there is gonna be every
effort to link it to international travel,
international food, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. They
will go so far as to find out if a sex partner had
ever traveled to the UK/europe, etc. etc. ....
It is gonna be a long, lonely, dangerous twisted
journey to the truth. They have all the cards, all
the money, and are willing to threaten and carry out
those threats....and this may be their biggest
downfall...

Thanks as always for your help.
(Recently had a very startling revelation from a rather senior person in
government here..........knocked me out of my chair........you must keep
pushing. If I was a power person....I would be demanding that there be a
least a million bovine tested as soon as possible and agressively
seeking this disease. The big players are coming out of the woodwork as
there is money to be made!!!
In short: "FIRE AT WILL"!!! for the very dumb....who's "will"! "Will
be the burden to bare if there is any coverup!"

again it was said years ago and it should
be taken seriously....BSE will NEVER be found in the
US!
As for the BSE conference call...I think you did a
great service to freedom of information and making
some people feign integrity...I find it scary to see
that most of the "experts" are employed by the federal
government or are supported on the "teat" of federal
funds. A scary picture!
I hope there is a confidential panel organized by the
new government to really investigate this thing.

You need to watch your back........but keep picking at
them.......like a buzzard to the bone...you just may
get to the truth!!! (You probably have more support than
you know. Too many people are afraid to show you or let
anyone else know. I have heard a few things myself...
you ask the questions that everyone else is too afraid to ask.)

================================================== ==============

12/07/06

HOWEVER, if you ONLY consider an OUTSIDE source of mbm from the UK, you will
see that indeed the UK did dump a great deal of mad cow poison on the middle
east, compared to the amount they dumped on USA. comparing from my records
from the U.K., the USA imported about 44 tons of UK mbm or greaves, Canada
got 83 tons in 3 years, 1993, 1994, and 1995. compared to about 6,985 tons
exported from the UK to Saudi Arabia over a period of about 20 years, with
Saudi importing mbm from UK as late as 1995. ISRAEL ALSO IMPORTED A GREAT
DEAL OF THIS POISON, 30,006 TONS of MBM FROM UK. A great deal was also
imported to Asian Countries as well. HOWEVER, we cannot state that this is
indeed a case of vCJD exported to the USA from Saudi with certainty. now we
all know that the USDA will paint this pig with lipstick and take it to the
dance, to the prom and anywhere else they can take it, but the fact still
remains, they cannot state this with scientific proof. IF you look at the
USA and it's TSE problem, the rendering industry, and the fact that the USA
shipped the technology of continous rendering to the UK, only to start using
5 years later, then look at the 100s, if not thousands of tons of
potentially and most likely TSE tainted feed used in the USA for the last 2
decades, the likelyhood of this being a USA source of vCJD, in my opinion,
is possible as well. In 2006 alone, the amount of ruminant protein still
being fed to USA cattle is not only phenominal, but also very very
disturbing. ...TSS