Cannibal study suggests human toll from mad-cow disease could be huge
`The ultimate death toll among humans from mad-cow disease could be massively under-estimated, according to an innovative study conducted among a cannibal tribe in Papua New Guinea. [..]
British doctors have hit on the idea of seeing whether people there fell sick long after the practice died out, the aim being to determine how long it takes for this BSE-like disease to incubate.
Their suspicions were confirmed, for they identified 11 people who were diagnosed with kuru between July 1996 to June 2004. [..]
As vCJD only surfaced as a disease little more than a decade ago, this relatively tiny toll has eased initial worries that tens of thousands of people could die, given that millions of people ate BSE-infected beef.’
