- The extraordinary measures taken by the British government
to obtain supplies of blood plasma underscores the continued threat of
variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the brain wasting disease resulting
from eating meat from cattle infected with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
(BSE or Mad Cow Disease).
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- On December 17 the British Department of Health purchased
an American blood plasma supply company called Life Resources for around
£50 million. The British government is also expected to pay out a
further £21 million over the next four years depending on the company,s
performance. Britain has relied on overseas plasma since 1998, when a ban
was introduced on the production of plasma from blood collected in Britain
because of a fear that donors may have vCJD.
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- US blood collection companies are being bought up by
private suppliers, so the British government made this purchase to guarantee
security of future supplies. Life Resources consists of 27 affiliated companies
that collect blood from 24 centres in America. The United States is the
only country able to supply plasma in the quantities needed by Britain,s
National Health Service. There have been no reported cases of vCJD there.
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- Life Resources will supply nearly half of Britain,s blood
plasma needs. Plasma is used in the treatment of tens of thousands of patients
to make blood clotting agents, albumin, immunoglobulin and Factor 8. Albumin
is used in the treatment for burns, shock and major trauma. Intravenous
immunoglobulin is given to patients with immune disorders and Factor 8
is used to treat haemophiliacs.
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- The government,s willingness to spend such a sum of money
contradicts official attempts to play down the threat from vCJD, which
remains incurable and affects mainly young people. A report by the National
vCJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh, published in July this year, said
it expected numbers of cases will be "very small although it admitted
that estimated cases of vCJD would increase by around 20 percent each year.
The very long incubation period for the disease means that its eventual
impact is difficult to assess. The unit gives the probable number of people
to have died from vCJD to be 119, with 10 people diagnosed and still alive.
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- A recent survey based on examination of tonsils and appendices
removed from patients between 1995 and 1999 predicts that about 7,000 people
"could be at high risk of developing vCJD. This figure is considerably
lower than previous estimates of a worst- case scenario of between 50,000
and 100,000 people developing the disease by 2080. Experts suggested that
there was a wide margin of error involved in the survey and recommended
larger scale studies. No blood test for the disease has yet been developed
so that only examination of organs for the presence of prions"the
mutated protein that causes the disease"can be used to detect vCJD.
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- Fears that vCJD could be transmitted through blood were
heightened by a report of tests on animals carried out at the UK,s Institute
of Animal Health earlier this year. They showed that one in six animals
given blood from infected sheep appeared to develop the illness. Previous
experiments have only showed transmission to animals fed with infected
brain.
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- In a separate development, two families this month won
a High Court hearing for an unproven drug to be given to their teenage
children who are infected with vCJD. The court decision gives the go ahead
for 18-year-old Jonathan Simms from Belfast and a 15-year-old girl to be
given the drug pentosan polysulphate. Due to the drug,s large sized molecules
it cannot be administered via the bloodstream but must be injected directly
into the brain.
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- Jonathan,s father, Don Simms, has carried out a desperate
search for treatment for his son since learning of the diagnosis. He learnt
about the drug pentosan polysulphate by searching on the Internet. The
families local hospital refused to try it on his son, so Don Simms hired
an air ambulance to take Jonathon to Germany where he had found a hospital
willing to carry out the treatment. Just as they were preparing to make
the journey, the German hospital pulled out. Don Simms then made appeals
to the British government to allocate a hospital for the treatment, but
was turned down. Only after taking the issue to the High Court was he able
to gain permission for the treatment to go ahead.
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- Pentosan polysulphate was originally developed as a drug
to treat bowel and bladder inflammation. Dr Stephen Dealler has promoted
its use in the treatment of vCJD over several years, although he has no
connection with these cases. Dealler is a medical microbiologist at Lancaster
Royal Infirmary. Along with Professor Richard Lacey he campaigned publicly
against the then Conservative government,s handling of the BSE crisis in
Britain. It took ten years after the BSE epidemic in cattle began in 1986
for the government to admit it could cross the species barrier to infect
humans. It finally began a cull of all cows over the age of 30 months in
an attempt to stop the disease spreading.
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- Simms told the BBC, "The animal studies that have
been carried out with this particular compound has given those animals
up to 40 percent extension of life and who knows, with medical science
as rapid as it is, what may be around the corner. If it were the case Jonathan
died out of this, his death will not have been in vain."
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- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/dec2002/bse-d30.shtml
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