Mad Cow Disease expert dies: Mad Cow disease suspected

[MichaelJCheaney]

What is he doing pissing off the cows in the first place? He had to know at some point the Mad Cows were gonna get upset enough to kill him!

A Spanish pathologist who specialized in a human strain of mad cow disease died Saturday, and officials suspect the disease played a role in his death, officials said. The doctor was head of the anatomy pathology section at the University Hospital Principe de Asturias in Alcala de Henares, outside of Madrid, according to the Madrid regional government's health office. He died Saturday night, at the hospital where he worked, officials said. The doctor's name was not released at the request of his family.
Several samples have been sent off for testing, the office said, but results are expected to take a month.
The doctor was well known both in and outside Spain for his work in the pathology field. His speciality was the human strain of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
It is not known how the doctor might have contracted the disease, but the health office said it was not thought to be through ingestion of contaminated meat. Authorities are investigating whether the doctor had been exposed to contaminated human tissue through his work.
Since 2001, 702 Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases have been reported in Spain, of which 87 have been reported in Madrid. Five people have died.

Now I know this sounds crazy....But shouldn't a doctor who is smart enough to know all about Mad Cow disease, and all the ways it can be contracted and transmitted also be smart enough to take precautions against getting the disease himself?

[Abroad]

Now I know this sounds crazy....But shouldn't a doctor who is smart enough to know all about Mad Cow disease, and all the ways it can be contracted and transmitted also be smart enough to take precautions against getting the disease himself?

His colleagues will be investigating this very carefully. I am not certain how they can say that he did not get it from ingesting contaminated meat (was he a veggie?); but I believe the so-called prions generally blamed for the illness are only partly understood. If he got it from just working with diseased tissue they are going to start taking more precautions.