Study: Treatment Possible for Mad Cow Disease

If you come down with mad-cow disease, you’re pretty much doomed. But now researchers say there’s a bit of hope — at least for mice who get infected by scientists: Symptoms of prion diseases, such as the human form of mad cow disease vCJD, can be reversed, a study of mice suggests. Medical Research Council […]

If you come down with mad-cow disease, you're pretty much doomed. But now researchers say there's a bit of hope -- at least for mice who get infected by scientists:

Symptoms of prion diseases, such as the human form of mad cow disease vCJD, can be reversed, a study of mice suggests.

Medical Research Council experts found memory and behaviour problems could be tackled by stopping production of the proteins corrupted in such diseases.

But there's a caveat.

[Researchers] warn the usefulness of the work for humans depends on having a test for vCJD (variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease).

Why? Because doctors need to catch and treat the disease in its early stages while there's still brain to save.

Mad-cow disease is quite bizarre, but its sibling diseases may be even stranger. I wrote about this in a recent Wired News story that looked at mad cow's connections to cannibalism, fatal insomnia and, of course, hamburgers.

Scientists 'reverse' vCJD signs [BBC]