The number of cases of Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (CJD) is rising, particularly among the young and cattle farmers, according to a report published in the British Medical Journal yesterday.
The CJD Surveillance Unit report revealed that since April last year, when a "new variant" strain of CJD was discovered, there had been 21 confirmed or "probable" victims. Many of those diagnosed have since died.
CJD is thought to be the human variant of the disease Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) which affects cattle. However, since the late 1980s - when BSE is believed to have entered the human food chain - the figures for young people in Britain eating hamburgers, meat pies and kebabs has increased dramatically.
Prof Richard Lacey, a microbiologist, who has been campaigning for research into a link between CJD and BSE said yesterday there were "just too many" cases of CJD "to have occurred by chance". Professor Lacey also criticised the CJD Surveillance Unit in Britain "because they don't want to consider the possibility that these farmers in this country and other countries were infected by cattle before BSE developed".
However, Professor Jeffrey Almond, a member of the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee, questioned the validity of the CJD report. Although he recognised the existence of a new strain of CJD, Professor Almond said the number of cases amounted to a "trickle".
PA adds:
The mother of a suspected CJD victim described watching her teenage daughter's life ebb away.
Ms Marie McGivern said the family had been told their teenage daughter, Donnamarie, was probably suffering from CJD on the day after her 15th birthday.
"It's terrible. We are all concerned for Donnamarie and its just breaking all our hearts," said Ms McGivern, who has given up work to care full time for her daughter at the family's home in Lanarkshire.
Donnamarie has deteriorated rapidly and now has to be fed, washed, dressed and helped to the toilet.