AS-mad-cow-warning

Tue Jan 13 08:46:58 2004 Pacific Time

      Consumer Group Says Mad Cow-Like Disease May Already Be Killing Americans; Organic Consumers Association Releases Report, Calls for Mandatory Reporting of Sporadic CJD

       LITTLE MARAIS, Minn., Jan. 13 (AScribe Newswire) -- The Organic Consumers Association, a nationwide citizen grassroots lobby, is releasing their latest report on the mad cow disease crisis written by expert Michael Greger, M.D., now available at http://www.organicconsumers.org/madcow/gregercjd.cfm.

       New research suggests that some of the hundreds of Americans dying of the sporadic form of CJD (Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease) every year may in fact be dying because of mad cow disease. And since autopsy studies done at Yale and elsewhere have shown that a few percent of Alzheimer's deaths may in fact be sporadic CJD, not hundreds, but thousands, of Americans may already be dying because of mad cow disease every year.

       Five years ago this week, the Center for Food Safety, the Humane Farming Association, the Center for Media & Democracy, and ten families of CJD victims petitioned the FDA and the CDC to immediately enact a national CJD monitoring system. The petition was denied. Now that mad cow disease has been confirmed in the United States, The OCA is calling on the CDC to immediately enact an active national surveillance program for CJD.

       "We don't know how many of the millions of Alzheimer's cases in the U.S. are actually CJD, and we don't know how many of the CJD cases were caused by eating infected meat. It's unconscionable that the CDC continues to refuse to actively monitor CJD on a national scale. In Britain, even feline spongiform encephalopathy, the cat version of mad cow disease, is a notifiable disease." stated Dr. Greger. "I've seen CJD with my own eyes, and it's the most horrible thing I've ever seen in my medical career."

       For comprehensive information and analysis on the mad cow issue, see the top-ranked mad cow section on Organic Consumers Association website, updated daily: www.organicconsumers.org

       For interviews and background information on CJD and the mad cow crisis, please contact the following experts:

       -- Dr. Michael Greger, MD

       Mad Cow Coordinator, Organic Consumers Association

       Phone: 206-312-8604

       email: mhg1@cornell.edu

       -- Ronnie Cummins, National Director,

       Organic Consumers Association

       Phone: 218-226-4164

       email: ronnie@organicconsumers.org

       web: www.organicconsumers.org


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