New variant CJD and BSE are linked

摘要

The first direct evidence that bovine spongi-form encephalopathy (BSE) seems to have been transmitted to humans has been reported. The announcement has increased European pressure on the British government to accelerate the cull of cows. Professor John Collinge and his colleagues from the Prion Disease Group at the Imperial College School of Medicine in London identified a molecular marker present in cases of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) (Nature 1996;383:685-90). New variant CJD has so far been identified in 14 patients in the United Kingdom—two of them still alive—who developed the disease at a comparatively young age.