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

[Richard Schmidt]

Donovan,

You hit the nail on the head. I think some of them even had this before the 
Mad Cow outbreak!

Dick


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donovan Arnold" <donovanjarnold2005 at yahoo.com>
To: "Richard Schmidt" <44schmidt at earthlink.net>; <Vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 10:54 AM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] 9 Cases of Brain-Wasting Disease in Idaho


> 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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