030119 Test Treatment For Human Mad Cow DiseaseJanuary 11, 2003Belfast, Northern Ireland - A teenager dying from the human form of mad cow disease has begun an experimental treatment that has never been tested on humans, his family said. Jonathan Simms, 18, had surgery at a hospital in Northern Ireland to insert a catheter and reservoir into his head. Next week doctors will begin inject the blood-thinning drug pentosan polysulphate into his brain in hope of slowing down damage from the brain-wasting disease. The treatment has had promising results on mice, rats and dogs infected with scrapie, another form of the disease. "We have researched this thoroughly and know the risks involved, but we have no other option," said Jonathan's father, Don Simms. "Our boy is slipping away from us and we can't just sit back and let that happen." British government advisers have not approved the treatment for variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, or vCJD, but in December a High Court judge ruled that Simms and an unidentified 16-year-old girl could seek the procedure. The ruling was backed by a judge in Northern Ireland, where Simms and his family live. The hospital where Simms had the treatment and the surgeon conducting it cannot be named for legal reasons. No cure exists for CJD, which is thought to be caused by eating meat tainted with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease. BSE spread in Britain after farmers added ground, infected animal carcasses to cattle feed. More than 100 people in Britain have died of the human form of the disease.
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