Is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) the same as human mad cow disease?
No. While the two diseases are from the same “family” of illnesses, CJD is not the result of mad cow transmission from a cow to a person. CJD is usually referred to as “sporadic” since it often appears as the result of a random, spontaneous mutation. The human form of mad cow disease, on the other hand, is typically called “variant” CJD, or “vCJD” for short. Equating the two would be like confusing one virus (say, AIDS) with another (like the common cold). About 300 cases of “sporadic” CJD are diagnosed each year in the United States . Some organic-food and animal-rights advocacy groups are now claiming that these cases are connected to eating beef. They’re not. 10. What about Chronic Wasting Disease and “Scrapie” … are these the same as mad cow? Scrapie is a sickness in sheep that comes from the same family of illnesses as mad cow disease. For farmers, scrapie has been a fact of life for over 250 years. Some epidemiologists believe mad cow disease first arose when the remains of scrap
