Test results confirm woman died of classic form of brain disease

TWIN FALLS, Idaho (AP)--A test on brain tissue has confirmed that an Idaho woman died of a form of the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease not believed to be linked to the consumption of beef tainted by bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

"Test results showed it was not the variant form of CJD," Tom Shanahan, spokesman for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, told The Times-News on Jan. 31.

Classic CJD, also known as sporadic CJD, has no known cause or cure, but is not believed to be linked to consumption of BSE-tainted beef. Beef-related cases are classified as variant CJD, which has killed at least 180 people in the United Kingdom and Europe since the 1990s.

The state health department has investigated nine Idaho deaths for possible links to CJD since January 2005. Of the nine--seven women and two men--four people were buried without an autopsy and brain tissue could not be tested.

Of the five remaining, brain tissue was sent to the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Cleveland's Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland where three tested positive for CJD and two tested negative.

Of the three positive CJD tests, more extensive tests were done to determine which form of CJD was involved. Now, all three have been confirmed to have died of the classic form of CJD.

Classic CJD hijacks the body's ability to control movement and causes dementia. There is no treatment.

The nine cases investigated included four women from Twin Falls County, a woman from Minidoka County, a woman from Benewah County, a woman from Bear Lake County, a man from Elmore County and a man from Caribou County. The man from Elmore County tested negative for CJD, as did a woman from Twin Falls County. All but one were 60 or older.

Shanahan said that usually there is one case of CJD per million people a year. But between 1984 and 2004, Idaho averaged 1.2 cases a year. He said that Idaho had three cases in one year.

Date: 2/23/06