2BoysTooLoud, I hate to be pessimistic about this but how can your dentist give you reassurance if he/she does not in anyway decontaminate their dental instruments from vCJD/CJD, its impossible. All they can do is tell you that the risks are minimal, you could ask what the guidlines are for dentists though no reason why they can't tell you.
Betelguese, thankyou for the links, here in the UK nobody has been brought to justice for the mis-handling of the UK BSE crisis. It really is quite unbelievable that we are still witnessing deaths from human mad cow's disease in 2011, but this is most likely because of the long incubation period.
I would like to name and shame those men & women who allowed infected bovine material into our food & medicine chains all those years ago, they could have prevented so many unlawful deaths but instead made decisions to experiment on the UK population:
JOHN MAJOR
MARGARET THATCHER
JOHN GUMMER
KENNETH CLARKE (former Health Minister 90's now Head Of Justice 2011)
RAY BRADLEY
WILLIAM REES
DONAL ACHESON
JOHN McGREGOR
KEITH MELDRUM
DOUGLAS HOGG
STEPHEN DORRELL
RICHARD PACKER
ELIZABETH ATTRIDGE
DR.JEREMY MATTERS
RICHARD CARDEN
ALAN LAWRENCE
ROBERT LOWSON
GERALD WELLS
SIR DEREK ANDREWS
DR.ALISIA WIGHT
ANGELA BROWNING
THOMAS EDDY
M H BAKER
DR. BERNARD WILLIAMS
DR. ROBERT KENDALL
DR. RICHARD KIMBERLIN
RON JACOBS
DR.GERALD JONES
DR.HILARY PICKLES
In the UK there is no justice, no accountability & no responsibily for the victims of human mad cow's disease (vCJD).
kerrymumbles, there is currently a diagnostic and screening test being used by the DOH behind closed doors, why is this not made public, and why is it not being made available to families who have been affected by vCJD and the wider population.
You are right about the parallels between AIDS/HIV, like vCJD there is no absolute certainty that donated blood is not infected. However, the main difference is that at least their are drugs for AIDS/HIv there is NO treatment for vCJD, its a death sentence.