At one time, estimates were that upwards of 100,000 people in Great Britain might die from Mad Cow Disease — the first time I ever heard of the disease was in a speech given by Howard Lyman in which he claimed the disease would prove worse than AIDS. These estimates have been steadily revised downward, and a recent study by French scientists suggests that the disease may peak at a couple hundred deaths.
The current research is based on a computer model of the disease that incorporates new assumptions about the disease.
One of the striking things about the variant CJD that is believed to originate as a result of Mad Cow Disease is that young people seem especially susceptible to it, as compared to the non-variant CJD — which is unconnected with Mad Cow Disease — which generally afflicts people over the age of 50.
The average age at death of victims of vCJD is only 28, while 93 percent of people who die from CJD are over the age of 50. This leads some researchers to conclude that for some reason, young people are especially susceptible to vCJD, and that as time goes by this will result in a fall-off of the number of cases and deaths.
The study, published in Science, says, “Our prediction of the epidemic of vCJD lies in the ‘optimistic’ end of the ranges of previously published figures, and this low value is in favor of a large species barrier between cattle and humans.”
Add to that, the fact that susceptibility to the disease seems to affect only a specific genetic subpopulation of individuals, and it may turn out that only a tiny number of people ever exposed to Mad Cow Disease ever have a chance to contract vCJD.
The study suggests that the total number of vCJD deaths is likely to be somewhere between 205 and 403, although these estimates are highly dependent on current information about vCJD and could change with new information.
Still, it is encouraging that the worst scenarios seem extremely unlikely at this point, and vCJD is unlikely to become a massive epidemic in Great Britain.
Sources:
CJD deaths ‘may have peaked’. The BBC, November 23, 2001.
Worst of Mad Cow May Be Over. Paul Recer, Associated Press, November 22, 2001.