guardiansite /0,3858,4252106,00.html

Meat trade 'blocking CJD investigations' 

Analysis shows north-south divide over fatal disease

Special report: the BSE crisis

James Meek, science correspondent
Friday September 7, 2001
The Guardian

The head of the unit monitoring cases of variant CJD yesterday accused
the meat industry of obstructing efforts to find out what went into
cheap pies, sausages and burgers in the 1980s, as the latest analysis
confirmed a north-south divide in the risk of contracting the fatal
brain disease. 

James Ironside, a neuropathologist who heads the national CJD
surveillance unit in Edinburgh, said the number of cases had gone up
by 20%. But people in the north of England and Scotland were twice as
likely to get it as those in central and southern England and Wales. 

Variant CJD is thought to be caught by eating food containing tissue
from cattle infected with BSE. Tissue such as brain and spinal cord 
contains a much higher proportion of infectious particles, known as
prions. 

Eating cuts of meat like steak would not necessarily expose people to
much of a risk, but cheap minced meat, containing scraps from various
parts of cattle, would have before the tight controls introduced in 
the 1990s when the BSE-vCJD link was officially acknowledged. 

The north-south divide in vCJD could be linked to greater poverty and
a preference for minced meat prod ucts and offal in the north, but
scientists cannot be precise about how the disease spread, and how it
is likely to spread in future until the meat industry gives precise
information about how, where and when it was cutting regular meat with
cheaper tissues. 

"We still have a woeful lack of information," Professor Ironside said.

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