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Subject:
From:
Kathy Dettwyler <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Mon, 21 Feb 2000 14:03:28 -0600
Content-Type:
text/plain
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Creutzfeldt-Jakob-Virus

CJ is actually not a virus.  It is caused by a *prion*, a tiny little snip
of genetic material smaller than a virus.  It is the same organism
responsible for "Mad Cow disease" in cows, scrapie in sheep, and CJ in
humans.  It is transmitted by touching or eating infected body parts, such
as eyes, brains, etc.  At one point it was fairly common among the Fore of
highland New Guinea, who transmitted it from the person who died of it to
his/her relatives through handling of the body and brains after death.  It
has also been reported to have been transferred from one human to another
through organ transplantation after death (person died of CJ but no one
knew that's what they died of, their retinas were given to other people,
who then also got CJ).  There have also been transmissions from patients to
doctors during brain and eye surgery.  It was thought to have infected cows
in England via feeding them ground up sheep parts, who were themselves
infected with scrapie.  Nasty stuff.  Carleton Gadjusek won a Nobel Prize
in Medicine for his discovery of what was killing the Fore.

CJ usually has a long incubation period, leads to eventual muscular and
neural deterioration and finally death.  It may take years to finally kill
someone.

Why do you ask???  Did you try to donate blood recently?  I hear they are
know asking about CJ disease.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email:
[log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html

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