NR AEVO
AU Gray,R.H.
TI Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
QU The New England Journal of Medicine 1999 May 27; 340(21): 1688; discussion 1689
IA http://www.nejm.org/content/1999/0340/0021/1687b.asp
KZ N Engl J Med. 1998 Dec 31;339(27):1994-2004. PMID: 9869672
PT comment; letter
VT
In the article by Johnson and Gibbs on Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, it is implied that the decline in cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Britain after 1991 is attributable to the preceding withdrawal of animal products from cattle feed. The authors also suggest that the four-to-five-year delay between the ban on animal products in cattle feed and the decline in the number of cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy is consistent with the incubation period for the disease. However, they do not note that there was extensive slaughter of potentially infected animals, particularly in herds containing cattle with diagnosed bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Thus, much of the decline in the incidence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy after 1991 is due to a reduction in the population of cattle at risk for the disease.
One cannot make valid assessments of trends over time in the number of cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy or of the duration of the incubation period without considering changes in the number of animals at risk for the disease. It would be more appropriate to express the number of cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy as an annual rate of incidence per 1000 cattle at risk.
IN R.H.Gray weist daraufhin, dass die Abnahme der BSE-Fallzahlen nicht nur auf das Tiermehlverfütterungsverbot, sondern auch auf das umfangreiche Töten besonders gefährdeter Rinder zurückzuführen ist.
MH Age Factors; Animal; Animal Feed; Cattle; Encephalopathy, Bovine Spongiform/*epidemiology; Great Britain/epidemiology; Incidence; Risk
AD Ronald H. Gray, M.D., Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health Baltimore, MD 21205-2179
SP englisch
PO USA