BMJ 1996;312:843 (30 March)

Letters

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy

Study so far provides no evidence for maternal and horizontal transmission

EDITOR,--R W Lacey admonishes us for failing "to provide any of the evidence supporting the occurrence of vertical and horizontal transmission of the infectious agent for bovine spongiform encephalopathy under farm conditions."1 The data from commercial farms regarding the occurrence of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the offspring of cows that themselves developed the disease can be found in Hoinville et al's paper.2

These veterinary epidemiologists carried out a case-control study of 477 animals with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and 1294 matched, unaffected animals all born after the ban on feed containing recycled animal remains was introduced in 1988 and retained in the same 349 farms. The results showed that 94.4% of the animals with bovine spongiform encephalopathy and 95.7% of the control animals were born to dams that did not subsequently develop the disease. This difference is not significant, and . . . [Full text of this article]


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