- AUBURN--- Janet Skarbek thinks
she's onto something --- something so big that it may bring the current
federal strategy for containing mad cow disease crashing down around us.
-
- It began in 2003 when the noted self-help author was
reading an obituary in a local paper concerning a woman who had died of
the same brain disorder --- Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease --- that had killed
Skarbek's friend several years earlier. A form of this disease, known
as variant CJD, is considered the human equivalent of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, so-called mad cow disease, and is presumably caused by
eating tainted beef.
-
- That fact alone got Skarbek's attention, but what almost
bowled her over was the next paragraph stating that the victim had worked
at the same Cherry Hill, N.J., racetrack where her friend had been employed.
"Could the victims have contracted the disease from eating tainted
beef at the racetrack's restaurant?" she wondered.
-
- For Skarbek, this marked the beginning of a long quest
involving a careful study of CJD cases within the Cherry Hill area. She
has uncovered 13 deaths from CJD --- virtually all of which, she contends,
can be traced to the racetrack from 1988 to 1992.
-
- Bizarre? Yes, without a doubt. Convincing? Not quite,
according to one expert.
-
- "At this point, all we know for sure is that Skarbek
has amassed a set of facts that probably would frighten most people,"
said Dr. Jean Weese, Alabama Cooperative Extension System food scientist
and Auburn University associate professor of nutrition and food science.
- Skarbek, Weese said, still has to establish a conclusive
link between the CJD cases and the racetrack --- a task that has eluded
her.
-
- Another major, possibly even fatal, flaw in Skarbek's
argument is that none of the cases associated with Cherry Hill have been
identified with the variant form of Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease linked with
eating tainted beef, Weese said. Rather, the cases have been associated
with the far more common sporadic form CJD, which is not linked to beef.
The damage sporadic CJD causes the brain is very different from the variant
form of the disease, and the likelihood of misdiagnosis in all 13 cases
is highly remote, Weese said.
-
- Skarbek, who has heard this argument before, maintains
the cluster of CJD cases associated with Cherry Hill represents something
entirely new and different --- a new form of CJD that possibly originated
in the United States. Still, Weese is still not convinced.
- "Even if this were true, it's still a stretch to
assume it's somehow connected to the variant form of CJD," she said.
-
- The simplest explanation, Weese said, is that it is an
offshoot of the sporadic CJD, especially considering that the brain damage
sustained more closely resembles this form of the disease.
-
- As further proof of a link to mad cow disease, Skarbek
points to the bizarre fact that five deaths have occurred within a two-county
area of northern New Jersey within the past 15 months --- a significantly
higher rate than otherwise would be projected.
-
- Yet, even this, Weese said, does not provide conclusive
proof of a link to the racetrack.
- "True, the large number of outbreaks is strangely
coincidental, but so are a lot of other odd occurrences, such as when lightening
strikes more than once in the same place for no reason," Weese said.
-
- Also, while it's true that the number of CJD deaths occurring
within the past 15 months vastly exceeds the rate that otherwise would
have been projected for the two counties, this has had no effect on the
number of deaths projected for the entire state --- a fact also pointed
out by Steven Milloy, a noted mad cow debunker.
- "It may turn out that the five deaths in the two-county
area may simply be a fluke," Weese said.
-
- Source: Dr. Jean Weese, Alabama Cooperative Extension
System Food Scientist and AU Associate Professor of Nutrition and Food
Science.
- Jim Langcuster, Extension Communications Specialist
- http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/newspaper/
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