lydgate at reed.edu (Chris Lydgate) writes:
>Any of you prion junkies familiar with the case of Vicky Rimmer, a British
>schoolgirl who took ill with symptoms that resemble Creutzfeldt-Jakob
>disease? Apparently the British media had a field day with this one because
>her parents said she was fond of hamburgers.
I saw a documentary a coupla months ago, featuring the bereavement of a
schoolgirl's mum, which must be the same one; two such cases would be a whole
lot less easy to dismiss as a scientific curiosity and we would have heard.
The programme said hamburgers were Vicky's favourite food, but no one in their
right mind thinks that's a substantive link. Hamburgers are the favourite of
most teenagers! Indeed, the fact that eating BSE material should have given a
human CJD -- which wouldn't be expected to become pathological until around
40-50 -- has been used to suggest that Vicky's case can't be definitely
attributed to to BSE at all.
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Nev Percy ; spbcnsp at ucl.ac.uk
