Mad cow illness hits 2 in Marin County, killing 1

Dr. Craig Lindquist, Marin's interim public health officer, said state health authorities notified him of the diagnoses by email Friday, after Marin physicians reported the information directly to the state.

He said Wednesday he had only recently received the medical records of the individual who died and had no detailed information about the other case.

But, he said, "There is no information suggesting a causal link between the two cases; nor is there any information that suggests a risk to the public."

Ken August, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health, declined to discuss the cases, other than to note that at this time they are considered "suspect cases."

The variant form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is related to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Spongiform refers to the appearance of infected brains, which become filled with holes causing them to resemble sponges under a microscope.

It is believed cattle contract the disease when they are given feed containing meat and bone meal made from other cattle or sheep.

Humans, in turn, contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease by eating the meat of infected animals.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease causes a dementia that progresses more rapidly than in other neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer's disease. Victims eventually enter a coma and die.

Craig McAllister of Oakland said he believes his ex-wife, Aline Shaw, 59, of San Rafael, may have died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease on Jan. 27.

McAllister said he received second-hand information from a relative that she had died suddenly after contracting an illness, and he called the Marin health department for more information.

McAllister said a nurse told him Shaw had been diagnosed with what is believed to be Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

He said he and his wife lived in London from 1989 to 1992. There was an epidemic of BSE among cattle in Britain in the mid-1980s.Lindquist said it is too early to say whether the Marin individuals diagnosed with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have the variant form of the disease or the slightly more common non-variant form. Non-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has only two known causes: genetic mutation and contaminants introduced during a medical procedure.