Young 'more susceptible to CJD' (mad cow)

[Cronus Protagonist]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3549396.stm

Young 'more susceptible to CJD'

Some 142 people are believed to have died from vCJD in the UK
Scientists have found more evidence to suggest that young people may be more susceptible to vCJD.
Some 142 people are believed to have died from vCJD since it first emerged in the UK nine years ago.

A disproportionate number of these have been young. Some believe this may be because they were more likely to have eaten BSE infected meat. But French researchers have dismissed the theory, saying it does not explain the relatively high death rates.

Infected meat

They used new figures on the UK population's exposure to BSE-infected meat to estimate how the disease should affect different age groups. Their computer model suggested that 48% of those with vCJD should be over the age of 40. In reality, only 10% of people affected by the disease are in this age group.

more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3549396.stm

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[Dubs]

1. More susceptible or more often reported?

These statistics do not prove to me that the young are more susceptible to vCJD. This is one conclusion you can draw from the data, true. However, the one that is more likely is that when the elderly are stricken with vCJD it can much more easily be passed off as other brain diseases, which are relatively common in this population. When the young come down with vCJD there is not a whole lot else to which their ailments can be attributed. Sounds like the reporting of this data has uncovered a bit of a cover-up. Of course I could be way off base. Just my medically-educated opinion...
Dubs

[Nambe]

2. Do you think dimson got mad cow from Laura.

I'm still going over the evidence.
Use your Head

Put a Lid on It!

[Elidor]

3. I think vCJD is underreported in the elderly

First, I think there is an unspoken policy of classifying it as something else. Second, the symptoms can be mistaken for other diseases. I also think it's already here in America. :tinfoilhat:

[Kool Kitty]

4. Yes, they could be mistaken for Alzheimers' disease,

couldn't they? I agree with you-I think it's already here, too. And this misadministration don't seem too keen on having much testing for it, either.

[dflprincess]

5. In Jim Hightower's new book

he mentions that Yale has found that 20% of the autopsies it has done on people diagnosed with Alzheimer's showed they actually had CJD. (He also said it would add no more than $.06 a pound of beef to test all cattle for the disease.)

A friend of my aunt's died of this a couple years ago. She went down hill pretty quickly (in her 70's). Her kids brought her up to University Hospital and the first diagnosis was Alzheimer's but another doctor there said it looked like Alzheimer's but something just didn't seem right about that diagnosis. I think part of his hesitation was how quickly she deteriorated after showing no signs of senility. It wasn't until the autopsy that a final diagnosis was made.

[Dubs]

6. Exactly my point above...

I am in the medical profession...this stuff happens all of the time. Someone goes down hill pretty quickly and it is usually attributed to Alzheimer's or another brain dz. Most of the time no autopsies are done. Works with the elderly, but you can't pass this off when it happens to the young.
Dubs

[Kool Kitty]

7. Damn. Double damn.

Good catch on the doctor's part. (My Mother died of Alzheimer's. It's not a quick deterioration, it is a long, slow slide with a lot of senility.) Which book of Hightower's mentions this? I just got, "Thieves in High Places", but I haven't started it yet.

[dflprincess]

8. His new one is "Let's Stop Beating Around the Bush"

currently out only in hardcover.