[email protected] Christines Blog (Archive Blogs 8) Friday 31st Oct ober 2008 There has been another addition to the website. Marked Documents its a selection of the evidence, information and letters I have collated since the campaign started. Including letters from Cow & Gate baby food company. Also a letter from Brakes who supplied school meals and hospital catering during the 1980s and 1990s. At present some of the documents in my and the teams possession are too sensitive to our investigations to expose. However our research and quest for the truth is ongoing and eventually all evidence, interviews and correspondence will be open to public scrutiny. I am presenting filming and interviewing officials that worked in MAFF during the height of BSE and high level civil servants. Their information and eye witness accounts made me angry and cry for nearly two days...........my sons death and all victims of vCJD was so avoidable. Wednesday 29t h Oct ober 2008 Below is a letter I received from BRAKES who supplied school meals during the 1980s and 1990s and still provide meals to schools and hospitals. I asked Brakes if they ever used MRM mechanically recovered meat in their school meal products. Below is their reply where they state 'Brakes now do not allow its use (MRM) in our own brand products'. FROM THIS I WOULD ASSUME AT ONE TIME THEY DID USE MRM IN THEIR OWN BRAND PRODUCTS. Note the letter has been written and signed by Adrian Whitehead their Group Legal Director and the tone asking me why I needed to know this information is rather strong. I wrote my letter as a concerned mum who wanted to know just what went into her sons school meals all those years ago. I have since written to Brakes again requesting they supply me with the names of the ready meals, and products they supplied to schools across the UK during the 1980s and 1990s that contained MRM I have never received a reply to my request. PDFmyURL.com PDFmyURL.com BRAKES were based not far from Ashford in Kent, where there was a cluster of cases of vCJD. Tuesday 28t h Oct ober 2008 Two members of the same family have died of vCJD in Spain. The Mother and son died within months of each other and had never visited the UK. It would appear that they must have eaten or ingested the same infectious bovine material virtually at the same time to die within such a short period of each other. They were both MM genotype. Apparently the area in Spain where they lived many people eat calves and cows brains as a delicacy, and there have been an outbreak of BSE in cattle in the area. As Andrews mum it opens up a whole new set of questions how many family members of victims of VCJD may be incubating or carrying the disease? Below is a section of the statement released by Professor Bob Will from the CJD Surveillance Team. For years every expert has told families whose loved ones have died of vCJD. 'There has never been a case of more than one in any family and it wont happen.' I was told this only a few months ago by senior members of the Prion Clinic in London. Once again these false reassurances when there are so many unknowns about the prions that cause vCJD do nothing but make the 'experts' look as if they are 'spouting a government policy of false reassurances'. I have asked on many occasions to become a guinea pig offering my blood and tissue for research purposes but have been refused. I am fifty one years of age and would not be afraid to find out I am incubating or carrying vCJD, in fact if that was the case I would welcome the media and cameras to witness my life and decline. I would also then know first hand what my beloved son had gone through. Every family member who I have talked to who has asked for their blood to be tested to find out their genotype has been refused. I believe the government are very concerned about the medical and litigation issues that may arise if family members were tested and PDFmyURL.com found to be carrying or incubating vCJD. Also with Professor Collinge stating that ' one in a thousand of the UK population may be carrying vCJD' There could be many thousands of angry people also pursuing the culprits and criminals named and shamed on this website. Jesus de Pedro Cuesta of the Spanish CJD Registry today confirmed that there have been two cases of vCJD in one family in Spain. This is the first time in any country that two cases of vCJD have been identified in one family. Professor Bob Will of the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh today issued the following STATEMENT ON A VARIANT CJD FAMILY CLUSTER: Three cases of pathologically confirmed variant CJD have been identified in Spain in recent years, including a man in his early 40s who died earlier this year. The clinical illness in this individual was typical of variant CJD, including the appearances on the MRI brain scan. A few months ago his mother, who was in her 60s, developed a rapidly progressive neurological illness and died about 5 months from the onset of this illness. An MRI brain scan showed appearances suggestive of variant CJD and preliminary results from post- mortem examination suggest that the suspected diagnosis of variant CJD is correct. Further results, which may confirm this diagnosis, should be available within a few days. Since 1994 there have been 167 cases of variant CJD in the UK, 23 cases in France and 15 cases in other countries, excluding Spain . The occurrence of variant CJD in more than one member of the same family has not been seen before and it has been the general view that family members of variant CJD cases are not themselves at greater risk of developing this condition. This raises the question as to why two cases of variant CJD have now been found in a family in Spain. There is no evidence of a genetic form of CJD in these Spanish cases and preliminary investigation has not shown any risk of CJD through medical or surgical treatment. There is no evidence of any risk of transmission of CJD through direct personal contact. The mother and son lived in an area of Spain in which BSE has been found and it is possible that direct consumption of material with high levels of BSE infection may have been the source of the infection. In the UK and other countries it is believed that processed bovine tissues were the most likely source of BSE infection and it is possible that different forms of exposure to BSE infection may explain the occurrence of variant CJD in two family members in Spain and not elsewhere. This, however, is uncertain and public health policies in relation to variant CJD may have to be reviewed in the light of these two cases in Spain. SEAC 101st meeting on Wednesday 15th October 2008 AGENDA Monday 27t h Oct ober 2008 Below is an extract from a feature about vCJD by Journalist Alison Pearson. She is interviewing Professor Bob Will of the Edinburgh Surveillance Unit whose role is to find lifestyle links between victims of vCJD and research into transmission routes and causes. This feature appeared in the late 1990s and the patient Dr Will is referring to is the youngest victim so far Zoe Jefferies who was diagnosed with vCJD at just 12 years old. Many scientists including Dr Stephen Dealler believe that young victims of vCJD were infected when they were babies. Zoe died aged 14 years old on 18th June 2001. Due to incubation periods of ten years plus Zoe was probably infected when she was an infant during the time she ate baby food/formula and received her childhood vaccinations (see What's To Blame? - Baby Food & Vaccines) . Alison Pearson takes up the story as she is being shown around the labs in Edinburgh: PDFmyURL.com ‘Dr Will offers me a tour of the laboratories. As we are getting up to go, I broach something that has been bothering me. Does he think the victims will get any younger? 'Well, we now have a 12- year- old.' A 12- year- old? 'That's what I said.' He looks almost ashamed. Girl or boy? 'I can't say.' But if the incubation period is at least 10 years, then the child was barely eating solid food when it contracted the infection. 'I'm not saying anything,' the neurologist says wearily. 'You've got small children of your own, Allison. You do the maths.' Sat urday 25t h Oct ober 2008 "HAEMOPHILIA SOCIETY CONDEMNS GOVERNMENT ADVISORS’ CALL TO DENY AT RISK PATIENTS RIGHT TO vCJD TEST" http://www.haemophilia.org.uk/UserFiles/PRESS%20RELEASE%20vCJD%20test.pdf Friday 24 t h Oct ober 2008 Alongside this blog is a photo taken at the SaBTO meeting in central London on Tuesday 21st October Photo left to right Christine, Andrew March Haemophiliac who has received over 101 phials of blood products from donors who went on to die from vCJD, Eve and Peter Buckland who lost their beloved son Mark to vCJD after an infected blood transfusion. I attended the first public meeting of SaBTO the Advisory Committee on the Safety of Blood, Tissues and Organs. It’s a non departmental public body with an independent Chair its members selected by the Appointments Commission for their specific areas of expertise.