In article ,
"Emmanuel.Gustin" wrote:

George Z. Bush wrote:

: I don't understand why the press is making such a big to-do about the
: thing.
: From what I have heard, there have only been some 139 cases in human beings
: in
: the entire world. That's 139 out of some 3 billions......

True. On the other hand, Creuzfeldt-Jacob disease is appalling
in its nature and symptoms; a horrible death and very hard on
the family.

What makes it worse is that this is a totally preventable
event. BSE is almost a man-made disease; if people had not
been so stupid to feed cows with insufficiently treated
proteins from other animals (IIRC this decision was taken
in the 1980s, when the UK and perhaps some other countries
lowered the legal standard for heat treatment of carcases)
there would have been no BSE.

Yemeni sheep are fed protein from other animals?

cf a recent case of C-J diagnosed in a Special Forces sergeant during
the past year; the cause of infection determined most likely to be
eating sheeps brains with some tribal elders during some local
negotiations.