Mad Cow USA? Young CJD Deaths Seem On the Rise

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Two young Michigan men have died from a mad cow-type disease called "sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)." The men did not die of actual British mad cow disease, called new variant CJD or vCJD in humans. No one knows what caused their sporadic CJD, but the odds of two young men dying at the same time in the same hospital are astronomical. The human victims of British mad cow disease are also typically young. The Michigan deaths raise many sobering questions: Could their TSE infections (transmissible spongiform encephalopathy) have resulted from eating US venison, pork, sheep or beef? Did they consume nutritional supplements made from animal glandular tissue? Do their deaths, along with others including young hunters Doug McEwen, Jay Whitlock and Kevin Boss, indicate that a strain or strains of TSE from US deer, elk, or livestock are now infecting humans? Only time and research will tell, but unfortunately the US government refuses to provide sufficient research funding, refuses to adequately test livestock for TSE agents, refuses to ban the feeding of slaughterhouse waste to livestock, and will not require mandatory reporting of CJD cases. Read our 1997 book Mad Cow USA, available as a free download.