[Vision2020] 9 Cases of Brain-Wasting Disease in Idaho

[Donovan Arnold]

Richard,

I do not have any definitive medical evidence, but I
am under the suspicion that our State Legislature is
also suffering from a brain-wasting disease. 

Donovan J Arnold

--- Richard Schmidt <44schmidt at earthlink.net> wrote:

> All,
> 
> They may not put this in your Idaho papers because
> it may scare you!! Go ahead and have a hamburger and
> beef hot dog! As some of you will remember I have
> put at least 2 or 3 other articles on this subject
> on V2020. The problem is being ignored by those in
> power. 
> 
> Dick Schmidt
> 
> 
> 9 Cases of Brain-Wasting Disease in Idaho 
> By REBECCA BOONE, Associated Press Writer Mon Oct
> 17,11:56 AM ET 
> 
> BOISE, Idaho - From the moment Joan Kingsford first
> saw her husband stagger in his welding shop, she
> wanted two things: His recovery and to know what
> made him sick. 
> 
> She got neither. Alvin Kingsford, 72, died recently
> of suspected sporadic 
> 
> Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal brain-wasting
> illness. The disease can be conclusively diagnosed
> only with an autopsy, which did not take place.
> 
> State and federal health officials are trying to get
> to the bottom of nine reported cases of suspected
> sporadic CJD in Idaho this year. Sporadic, or
> naturally occurring, CJD differs from the
> permutation dubbed variant CJD, which is caused by
> eating mad-cow-tainted beef and has killed at least
> 180 people in the United Kingdom and continental
> Europe since the 1990s.
> 
> "One thing is very clear in Idaho - the number seems
> to be higher than the number reported in previous
> years," said Dr. Ermias Belay, a CJD expert with the
> federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
> "So far, the investigations have not found any
> evidence of any exposure that might be common among
> the cases."
> 
> Normally, sporadic CJD only strikes about one person
> in a million each year, with an average of just 300
> cases per year in the United States, or just over
> one case a year in Idaho. Over the past two decades,
> the most cases reported in Idaho in a single year
> has been three.
> 
> Until this year.
> 
> Of the nine suspected cases reported so far in 2005,
> three tested positive for an infectious disease of
> the nervous system, though more tests are pending to
> determine if the fatal illness was in fact sporadic
> CJD. Four apparent victims were buried without
> autopsies. Two suspected cases tested negative.
> 
> Still, federal and state health officials are
> stopping just short of calling the Idaho cases a
> "cluster," waiting for final test results from the
> victims who got autopsies.
> 
> The best tool of investigators to pin down the
> diagnosis - the autopsy - is sometimes hard to get,
> said Tom Shanahan with the Idaho Department of
> Health and Welfare.
> 
> Pathologists are often reluctant to perform the
> procedures, the cost of an autopsy can be high and
> some families are reluctant to give their consent,
> officials say.
> 
> Joan Kingsford wanted an autopsy done on her
> husband, but no mortician in the area would agree to
> handle Alvin's body after his brain cavity had been
> opened. They feared they would catch the rare
> disease, Kingsford said.
> 
> Ultimately, she opted to skip the autopsy and have a
> traditional funeral service.
> 
> "A week before he passed away, the funeral homes
> said they wouldn't take the blood out" if an autopsy
> was done on him, she said. "They just put some
> embalming in him and told me I had to have a funeral
> in three days."
> 
> CJD is transmitted through a malformed prion found
> primarily in the brain and spinal fluid of those
> infected, Belay said. Standard sterilization
> procedures don't eliminate the risk of infection;
> instead equipment must be soaked in a chemical
> solution for more than an hour and then heated,
> according to the     World Health Organization.
> 
> Mortuary procedures - including embalming - can be
> done safely on intact bodies of CJD victims as long
> as extra precautions are taken, but the World Health
> Organization does not recommend embalming patients
> who have had autopsies.
> 
> Larry Whitaker, a Beaverton, Ore.-based regional
> salesman for the embalming chemical and equipment
> manufacturer Dodge Company, offers workshops to his
> clients on safe handling of CJD-infected bodies.
> 
> "When the brain has been removed, it is an
> extraordinary risk," Whitaker said. "This is one
> time I think that cremation has to be more than
> mildly considered."
> 
> A member of the Mormon Church, Joan Kingsford's
> church discourages cremation. She was thrown into
> making a decision about her husband's remains much
> sooner than she expected. 
> 
> "It was two and a half months before we knew what
> was wrong with him, and by that time he was in the
> hospital," she said. "I wish we could have done the
> autopsy, because I think people need to know about
> this." 
> 
> "We definitely have a problem in Idaho," she added. 
> >
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