03x04 - Foreign Body

[bunniefuu]

between 1995 and 1998 25 young people in

Great Britain developed some unusual

symptoms they had difficulty standing

walking and feeding themselves they also

experienced severe memory loss most d*ed

within a year of developing symptoms

medical investigators searched for clues

what was causing these deaths and were

they somehow related

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[Applause]

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the small town of Devizes infin dates

back to the 17th century about two hours

west of London the town is surrounded by

lush farmland cattle and sheep graze

peacefully in nearby fields Stephen

Churchill lived in devises with his

parents and his sister Helen Stephen was

a normal teenager active fun-loving a

good student

Stephen was occipital bushy schoolboy

this will never long enough he had lots

of friends he was in the Air Training

Corps and he liked school like school

and life was just very busy 15 Stephen

Churchill set high goals for himself

and plan to join the Royal Air Force but

in July of 1994 he began to show signs

of discretion he was distracted confused

and had problems remembering failures by

autumn when Stephen was 18 years old

his grades began to fall we got a phone

call from the school in mid-november

saying the students being to see the

headmaster and that he was leaving

school and that we had given him

permission to do this and we didn't know

anything about it

in fact I thought that we talked about

another boy altogether when Stephen

returned home from school his doctor

prescribed anti-depressant medication

but his condition worsened it started

off with kundan eye coordination he

would reach out to pick up a couple a

month

miss it completely but continue with the

action as though he had picked it up and

put something that was it wasn't there

to his lips he self houses a loose

nation nightmares he just sucks a motor

to television became very frightened of

cartoons on the television things that

weren't fight me at all he thought he

was there in the cartoon his parents

were aligned and they quickly took

Steven through a London hospital he

could all equally feed himself from

washing cells nothing tests for

virtually every medical possibility were

all negative and doctors were baffled

they concluded that Steven had some sort

of progressive neurological illness of

unknown origin on May 21st 1995 Steven

Churchill d*ed he was 19 years old in

the midst of their grief the Churchill's

were shocked when they heard the results

of their son's autopsy Steven had d*ed

of creutzfeldt-jakob disease or CJD it's

an extremely rare disease it causes tiny

holes to form in the brain it usually

strikes the elderly and is always fatal

Steven Churchill was one of the youngest

known victims of the disease we could

understand why a young boy who's been

sitting well had d*ed of a disease of

the elderly just didn't make sense

and it didn't make sense

the medical investigation

when Steven Churchill d*ed of CJD

a neurological illness which usually

strikes the elderly doctors were alarmed

not long afterwards in London a 16 year

old girl developed the same symptoms and

there was a similar case about a hundred

miles away in hop ndon

mic and Penny Simmons daughter started

to behave differently 22 year old Nina

was a beautiful vivacious young woman

who had just graduated from Manchester

University she had one of these smiles

that would go from ear to ear

and she laughed shortly after graduation

Nina displayed signs of depression that

was certainly not like Nina and I think

it's a backstage who realize that

perhaps there was something not normal

with Nina she was taught to forget

things forget to phoned forget what she

written things down

Nina's physical condition also

deteriorated and she underwent tests

with the Royal Free Hospital in London

one day I put my head round the door of

one of the doctors and just said I know

that Nina's had a lot of tests have you

had any results back yet

he said well everything's negative

there's nothing that's come up positive

and I said well what does that mean what

do you think it is and he said well you

should I should be looking at could

probably be CJD aids we're talking about

and yeah I haven't actually been perhaps

being prepared for that at that time sat

down and said are you telling me that my

daughter is going to die and he said

world probably yes well I do recall one

day when it was I was nursing her at

home and she came to me I just said that

I'm going to die and I how the hell do

you tell your child laughs answer that

question to your child nine months after

first developing symptoms Nina d*ed

it was the bravery of Nina and she tried

to maintain a smile turtle I think that

the memory lives with me since Nina's

doctor suspected that she might have

d*ed of CJD

her brain tissue along with Steven

Churchill's were sent here to the CJD

surveillance unit in Edinburgh Scotland

well I saw something distance down the

microscope it was a sighting and very

surprising and then I immediately began

to think of why is this different I

missed this before had I not know sister

before dr. Ironside had examined over



anything like this before these brain

samples were filled with plaque or fatty

deposits and the brain tissue

surrounding the plaque was almost

completely destroyed one of dr.

Ironsides colleagues called the slides

the most terrifying thing he had ever

seen

dr. irons I've noticed cellular changes

in the brain which meant this was a new

form of CJD

one they called new variant CJD but they

weren't sure what caused it within

months they were even more cases

the CJD Surveillance Unit interviewed

all of the victims families using a 22

page questionnaire they asked about diet

travel habits occupation anything that

might shed some light on this new

illness according to the survey all were

young and fell ill within a short time

of one another they were from all over

Great Britain and not clustered in any

one geographic location for most the

first symptoms included depression and

memory loss the patients had difficulty

walking standing and even feeding

themselves it's a gas be honest it's

absolutely horrific I think it it's

extremely difficult to family toward

someone that they love going through

this sh*t it's a very brutal illness

scientists realize that the physical

symptoms of new variant CJD were similar

to a disease which were striking cows in

Great Britain farmers called it mad cow

disease the medical term is bovine

spongiform encephalopathy or bsv it's a

fatal disease that first broke out on

this farm in England in 1985 scientists

don't know what's causing it or where it

came from but they are worried the

cattle are hyper excitable they react

more strongly to light and sound and

sudden movements where they'll become

more in a panic stage they too have

trouble getting up have difficulty

walking and placing their teeth the

brains of cows would BSE were riddled

with tiny holes like a sponge identical

to the brain tissue of Stephen Churchill

Nina Cadwallader and the other victims

but what caused mad cow disease and

couldn't have jumped species from cows

to humans a grisly clue laid thousands

of miles away on an island in the

Pacific Ocean in the 1950s in New Guinea

there was an outbreak of an illness in

the for a tribe similar to cjb members

of the tribe called it kuru kuru in the

native language of the group in New

Guinea suffered from this disease means

fright or shivering kuru victims became

uncoordinated staggered and eventually

lost the ability to walk or stand

they usually d*ed within nine months

scientists believed kuru was transmitted

when the tribe ate the infected brains

of their dead relatives during funeral

rituals the infectious agent is all over

the body inside but primarily in the

highest amounts in the brain and brain

was among the organs that were eating

the outbreak of kuru stopped when the

practice of cannibalism was halted in

the 1960s but what did cannibalism have

to do with mad cow disease in Britain

three decades later during that time

cows in Britain were undergoing a change

in diet they had been herbivores feeding

on grass and grains

but over time their diets were

supplemented with scrap remains of

slaughtered sheep and other cows with

this new diet the cows not only turned

into carnivores or meat eaters they

became cannibals like the for a tribe

and scientists suspect that cows were

eating the remains of sheep that had a

form of spongiform encephalopathy called

scrapey scrapey has been known for about



name from them rubbing they think that

their itching that they have itch

sensations so they rub along fence or

fix objects the theory goes that after

cows ate the straight the infected sheep

they developed their own form of

spongiform encephalopathy called BSE or

mad cow disease and this was passed on

over time as more infected keep Intel

remains were fed back to cows so you had

this recycling of cattle carcasses as

well as the straight the infected sheep

carcasses which amplified the amount of

insect ivities and the epidemic took off

the British government outlawed the

practice of b*ating most sheep and cow

remains the cows in 1988 but not before

millions of pounds of contaminated meat

had entered the food chain if this

infection jumps species once again from

cows to humans scientists feared the

country would be on the brink of a new

and terrifying play

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by 1997 there were 21 confirmed cases of

new variant CJD and young people

throughout Britain scientists wondered

whether meat from cows infected with mad

cow disease k*lled Stephen Churchill

Nina Cadwallader and the other 19 cases

had this form of spongiform

encephalopathy in essence jumped species

from sheep to cows and from cows to

humans there exists a biological species

barrier which makes it difficult for a

disease to jump species but large

amounts of an infectious agent can

overcome that species barrier the amount

of infection that is needed to produce a

disease when you cross species is much

greater than the amount that you need

when you transmit within a species one

clue that this was a possibility came in

the 1980s when cats and some other zoo

animals in Britain developed spongiform

encephalopathy presumably from eating

pet food made from infected cow parts

this seems to be another example of BSE

coughing species and going into another

type of mammal of the Cape's not the

same as a human but if it can go from

child cat and why not from Casa human

but what was the infectious agent

causing these divisions

crepey and sheep mad cow disease kuru

and CJD in humans all are what are

called prion diseases

prions are proteins which exist in the

brain one theory is that rogue or

damaged

prions from the brains of infected cows

make their way into a human's brain

after ingesting contaminated meat where

they come into contact with healthy

prions these rogue prions then damage

the healthy prions causing the holes and

sponge-like appearance in the brains of

victims of new variant CJD but this is

just a theory if it's correct it

explains why cooking does not eliminate

the problem prions are virtually

indestructible and remain in

contaminated meat even after it's been

cooked in high temperatures not even

radiation can k*ll them but not all

medical researchers agree some think it

may be a virus or something similar if

it is any type of virus it's for sure

different from any other virus that we

knew about people have looked for

viruses nucleic acid for many many years

and none has ever been demonstrated to

see if mad cow disease could jump

species dr. Mora Bruce conducted an

experiment she took two groups of mice

and injected the first group with brain

tissue from victims of new variant CJD

the second group was infected with

tissue taken directly from cows with BSE

or mad cow disease

after death the tissue in their brains

were analyzed we saw a very similar

pattern of disease illness life to the

one that we previously seen in life

infected with BSE from cattle the

demonstration that the same strain of

agent was involved in you variant CJD

and BSE strengthens the link between the

two the likelihood of a link between mad

cow disease and new variant CJD in

humans was finally established clearly

it was very disturbing if that were the

case it was quite likely that there

would be more cases of this type of CJD

linked BSE and that like a major public

health consequences so clearly this was

a very very serious issue but the

question remained

how many others who ate contaminated

needle England were going to die the

Churchill's learned the truth about what

k*lled their son in an unfortunate way

they were watching a television

broadcast from the House of Commons as

the British health official announced to

the world that their son had d*ed from

eating contaminated me the committee

have concluded that the most likely

explanation at present is that these

cases are linked to exposure to BSE

before the introduction of the step

aside bovine Apple ban in 1989 well the

Secretary of State admit that it is his

government's reckless disregard for

Public Health

[Applause]

and said dogma of deregulation we can

swept up world just exploded but for us

the world had explode in a different way

because we were hearing publicly on TV

in our houses of parliment facts about

our own son's death and we don't being

told it was a disgraceful way to learn

such personal information the victim's

parents couldn't help but wonder whether

they too were at risk and it was very

difficult to understand as to why we had

not contracted this and Nina heard and

people are often very concerned because

they say well our whole family same

thing what are the risks to my other

children my husband but that kind of

thing I'm not going to eat it until they

have done something about it something

that reassures people in that sit there

so it's okay - we're all worried people

I don't suppose it'll reverse bankrupt I

don't suppose the dr*gs on there but it

will of a tremendous effect on income

there is no cure or new variant CJD

scientists believe that the most

infectious part of a cow is the brain

and spinal cord tissue which may have

been used in sausage ground beef and

meat pies those parts are no longer used

in food products Cal flesh blood and

milk have never been found to contain

mad cow disease but critics point out

that those tests aren't definitive

logic suggests that millions of Britons

ingested the infected meat

not just those who d*ed there has been

genetic testing which suggests that some

individuals are more genetically

susceptible to prion diseases than

others when news of the connection

between mad cow disease and new variant

CJD was announced most restaurants and

fast food chains in England stopped

using British meat many European

countries banned the import of British

Catalan meat as did the United States 57

more business of the last week is export

either to Europe or the third country

that was stopped last Thursday night the

rest of my business in the UK to people

like McDonald's that have stopped

overnight as well besides the prion

theory another is that it depends on the

amount of infected meat one ingest and

no one knows why you variant CJD strikes

mostly young people one of the possible

explanations is that younger people

through their eating habits eat a lot of

junk food a lot of processed food a lot

of cheaper meat cuts that they have a

much greater exposure to the agent the

other possible explanation is that young

people purely because they are young are

more susceptible to these agents there

have been very few cases of mad cow

disease and new variant CJD in other

parts of the world to date there have

been none in the United States

the United States government has banned

the practice of feeding most sheep and

cow remains to cattle and the practice

has been banned in England as well but

not before more than a hundred and

seventy thousand cows in Britain had to

be destroyed the herds have been closely

monitored for inside the BSE or mad cow

disease ever since

the Churchill's and the Senate's no

longer eat beef products and they wonder

if more could have been done to prevent

the spread of mad cow disease to their

children it's going to take a long time

to scientists to know exactly what did

happen and why why Nina d*ed and why so

many young people of her age group by



of new variant CJD due to its long

incubation period scientists cannot

predict how many more are destined to

die nobody in the world yet knows

whether the number of cases of new

variant CJD

is going to fritter along at 3 or 4 a

year for the next several years and then

disappear or whether these three or four

cases a year for the past four or five

years is the leading edge of an epidemic

of unknown dimensions of course it

worries me very much and it's impossible

I think of a stage to effectively

predict what's going to happen clearly

the idea of tens of thousands of young

people suffering from such a devastating

neurodegenerative diseases is terrifying

really we don't know how many people are

going to be affected and I think that at

the moment there is really no way of

predicting it it could be a large number

it could be a small number I think Eddy

family who have have had to endure what

our family has and to see a young life

destroyed would find it very hard to eat

peace again knowing that there is no way

of knowing what your eating is safe and

nobody can give you absolute assurance

that it is now safe or will be safe in

the future so far none of the other

families including ourselves have had or

the victims in the families there's none

of them connected so

we just have to wait and see and with

for the same to give us the answers

I think as a lot of animals we had a

farm in the family we used to go though

spend my summer holidays there Steve and

Helen spent their summer holidays there

when a family we staff ate carbs and

used to go and Stroke the cattle Kalin

was lonely I what now not for me that

haunting I have a sinister look

could that family be harboring the

disease I don't know

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ah

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