UK: Suspected vCJD carriers may be tested after death

Five thousand people who have been told they may be infected with the human form of BSE may be asked to agree to post-mortem tests and to donate their bodies in the interests of the living.

Legal and ethical experts will join scientists in an urgent review of how the dead may be screened for evidence of variant CJD, even when it did not kill them. Autopsies on about 30,000 other people who die each year could also routinely include tests to establish whether any were unknowingly carrying the infection. Examination of people who donate their organs for transplant after death is another option to be considered by advisers for the Department of Health.

The review has been ordered amid fears that the incurable disease has a far greater hold on the population than is evident so far, and that it has already been spread between people through contaminated blood transfusions, plasma products or surgical instruments.....

Source: Suspected vCJD carriers may be tested after death

Other EVANA-articles about this topic:
Explorações de animais culpadas pela disseminação da gripe das aves (pt)

Nature is promoting vegetarianism (en)