NewsChannel 19's Kym Richardson Reports 1/30/04
Autopsy reports show a DeKalb County man died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of mad cow disease.
Charles Farrow, or "Bobby" known to friends became sick in October of 2001. He began mixing up his words and staggering. Doctors said he had a mini stroke and he'd be fine. But Farrow continued to get worse.
Two months later doctors in Birmingham diagnosed him with sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD. Three days after that - he slipped into a coma. Bobby's wife, Evelyn said, "this is a horrible disease, they need to find out what it is. In 6 weeks go from a healthy person to someone in a coma, you can't understand this."
"There are cases that are just sporadic, where we just don't know," says Dr. Richard Spera. Dr. Spera is an infectious disease physician. He says Creutzfeldt-jakob disease is so rare, medical experts are still baffled by it. "Something that's very difficult to diagnose, usually done at autopsy," added Dr. Spera.
This is what doctors do know. CJD is usually not contagious. In most cases, like Bobby's, it appears out of nowhere. In 10% of cases it's inherited through a mutated gene. The few cases that have been diagnosed in the United State they have not been passed from infected cows to humans.
Charles Farrow died in November of 2003. When he was buried, his body had to be wrapped several times to make sure no fluids would leak into the ground. Apparently after death is when CJD is a risk to anyone who handles the body.
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