More patients at risk from CJD after surgery - BBC News today- watch Newsnight 10.30pm BBC2 tonight

[Beaaware]

This should be interesting have also posted the info on general health as it is a very serious health concern, BBC has reported that 59 people in the UK have recently been put at risk of CJD (human form of mad cows disease) after their operations at 2 hospitals in Wales & Essex. I have been concerned about the risks of vCJD for some time now and this only confirms my fears, it is about time this information is out in the public domain as nobody should be exposed to this lethal disease in 2011. Our government should be implementing the latest technology instead of putting it on the backburner and telling us that their is only a small risk that you may develop it after your operation, dental visit or blood transfusion. I would rather be told that yes we are taking this matter very seriously and we will start to screen all blood donors with immediate effect. They have the blood screening tests available why are'nt they using them!

Just watched it on iPlayer.
I don't know if they had the Commons debate?

You can't give blood full stop if you've lived the UK from mid 80s to mid 90s (or some similar period) in some countries in Asia etc just because of this risk. We are far too causal about it IMO.

Most people would choose a blood transfusion to avoid imminent death rather than worry about a tiny tiny chance of CJD.

Basically what is happening here is that our government are making choices for you by choosing not to introduce a blood screening programme or decontamination of surgical instruments for the human form of mad cows disease. If you are happy to be put at a small risk (and who really knows if it is a small risk as the incubation is anything upto 10 - 20 years) then fine, but personally I would prefer to have a choice and not be told "after" my opeartion or transfusion that we are very sorry but we have put you at risk of developing this untreatable disease. The trouble is that we Joe public have no choice in this serious health matter, the powers that be are playing russian roulette with peoples lives "hoping" that none of will be infected via blood or instruments. For some of us it is really a non issue but for me I would rather not be put at risk any risk of CJD/vCJD.

JBellingham, you are absolutely correct people would choose a blood transfusion to avoid imminent death rather than worry about a tiny tiny chance of CJD/vCJD I think that is obvious. But the big unanswered questions here are:

Why is our government choosing not to safeguard our blood supplies?
Why are treatments that can prolong life and developments of treatments being stalled, blocked and withheld from victims of vCJD?
Why does the government want victims to die rapidly without interventions?

Raising serious questions, raising awareness.

Er Beaware you are a bit odd and obsessive. There are many risks in life. Some we can do something about, some we cannot. If you are having an operation the least of your worries is vCJD.

The government DO take it seriously and are protecting us as well as they are able without bankrupting the country. You seem to be happier to scaremonger without knowing a lot of the facts.

I think you should find a more real threat to worry about.

Agree with adelaidegirl. I've just had major surgery and had a blood transfusion. I took part in a clinical trial looking at CJD transmission through transfusions. From what I understood from the researcher there isn't a way of screening out CJD at the moment - this trial was looking at whether the body produced specific anitbodies post transfusion which would demonstrate ??? dunno! I don't remember any details - wasn't my priority at the time - but resarch work is going on.

beaware are there definitely screening tests for blood products available for CJD now? Are you sure of your facts?

And yes, I took the transfusion. Risk benefit analysis didn't make it v difficult.

adelaidegirl, so being concerned about a serious health issue and raising public awareness is odd, obsessive & scaremongering, would you prefer it if it was kept quiet out of the public domain? If you watched newsnight you will have heard from a UK scientist that it would be relatively cheap to introduce sterilisation methods to decontaminate surgical instruments, scientists developed a method to do this in 2004 but it has never been introduced into our hospitals, so in answer to your question the government could have done something about this problem but did not. Is this taking the matter seriously, I think not.
Perhaps you need to meet a few haemophilliacs & see how happy they are to be exposed on a regular basis to possible contaminated blood. Maybe not a serious issue for you to worry about but it is for many others.
One death from vCJD is one death too many, but in your view clearly not.

iloverhubarbcrumble, It sounds like you were being used as a guinea pig for the researchers, I am surprised that you were told that there isn't a way of screening blood for vCJD/CJD at the moment, this is not true. There is a filtering method approved for use to remove rogue prions prior to transfusion called the P.Capt filter, by MacPharma, although this does not screen blood donors individually. Nevertheless, you could have been reassured if given the choice of having your donor blood filtered or not before your transfusion. Just out of curiousity, will you be given the results of the tests carried out?