Woman died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
TWIN FALLS, Idaho – The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare has confirmed that an Idaho woman died of a form of the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that is not believed to be linked to the consumption of beef tainted by mad cow disease.
She was one of three confirmed CJD deaths in Idaho this year. More extensive tests conducted at the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Cleveland’s Case Western Reserve University showed she died of the classic form of CJD.
Classic CJD, also known as sporadic CJD, has no known cause or cure, but is not believed to be linked to consumption of mad-cow-tainted beef. Beef-related cases are classified as variant CJD, which has killed at least 180 people in the United Kingdom and continental Europe since the 1990s.
Only one person in the United States is confirmed to have died of the variant form, said Tom Shanahan, a spokesman for the Health and Welfare Department. That was a woman in Florida who had lived in England, he said.
Classic CJD hijacks the body’s ability to control movement and causes dementia. There is no treatment.
The state health department has investigated nine deaths for possible links to CJD since January.
Of the nine, four people were buried without an autopsy and brain tissue could not be tested. Of the five remaining, brain tissue was sent to the facility in Cleveland, where three tested positive for CJD and two tested negative.
Of the three positive CJD tests, more extensive tests were done to determine which form of CJD was involved. Now, two have been confirmed to have died of the classic form of CJD.
Shanahan said Thursday that the name and location of the woman most recently confirmed as a classic CJD death was private medical information he could not give out.
Shanahan said he expects final results by the end of the month on the third positive CJD test to determine whether it was the classic or variant form.
The nine cases investigated include four women from Twin Falls County, a woman from Minidoka County, a woman from Benewah County, a woman from Bear Lake County, a man from Elmore County and a man from Caribou County. The man from Elmore County tested negative for CJD, as did a woman from Twin Falls County.
Shanahan said an expert on CJD with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was examining the medical records of the four people buried without an autopsy to determine whether they died because of CJD.
Shanahan said he plans to issue a report at the end of the year including information about all CJD-related deaths.