Health

To some, "mad cow" was the cause of death for one of my patients in Northern Virginia in the early nineteen nineties. He got it from a cornea transplant.

The CDC at the time had me use universal precautions with gowns and booties, etc. I was instructed to gown & wear eye protection because my job requirements meant I had very close proximity to secretions with splash risk. Everything had to be put in red biohazard bags at doffing.

We now know that was overkill because the transmission is tissue to tissue. At the time, that was unclear.



He died three weeks after I opened his case. The deterioration was dramatic and very unsettling due to the changes that the brain goes through with prion disease.

One need only to watch the old videos of mad cow's effects on livestock that were filmed before our knowledge of human to human transmission to get an idea of the horror that he suffered.

The transplant supply is poorly regulated worldwide so that even today, the risks are enormous.

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