Drivers' mad cow' warning
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IN Truck drivers are snore likely than most people to suffer from the human form of the "mad cow" illness, CreutzfeldJacob Disease (CJD), according to a World in Action television programme broadcast on Monday (14 August).
Edinburgh CJD expert Dr Bob Will says professional drivers are among the most frequent sufferers from the disease, along with dairy farmers.
Many doctors fear that BSE could have been passed to humans in the 1980s when burgers and sausages frequently included offal containing the BSE-causing agent.
But Will is anxious to reassure drivers that the results were "probably a statistical freak" caused by the small sample of CJD sufferers. "For 25 years people around the world have been trying to find a link," he says. "But it's an extraordinarily rare disease and because of that you can turn up occupational links."
He apologises to anyone who was worried by the programme and says that he did not get the chance to put his finding into context, One problem is that the figures are distorted because OD mainly strikes old people who declare their occupation as "retired". Now he is waiting for more (JD cases to appear to see if stronger links with people's jobs emerge.