Dutch have human “mad cow” case but say beef safe

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The Netherlands reported its first human case of “mad cow” disease on Thursday but said Dutch beef is safe to eat.

The interior ministry said in a statement a patient at a hospital in the central town of Utrecht had been diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of “mad cow disease”.

It said European authorities had been informed and the inspector of health was investigating whether there was any risk that the disease could have infected others.

Around 150 cases of vCJD have been reported in the world, most of them in Britain. There have also been cases in France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Canada and the United States.

There have been more than 70 BSE cases in animals in the Netherlands since 1997, but “Beef in the Netherlands is safe because all susceptible cattle are tested for BSE at slaughter,” the interior ministry said.

The brain-wasting disease is fatal and incurable. It is thought to be caused by eating food tainted with material from cattle with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, which is a progressive neurological disorder.

The Netherlands announced strict new restrictions last year on blood donation over concerns about the transmission of the human version of mad cow disease through blood transfusion.

Mad cow disease, first emerged in British cattle in the 1980s and forced the destruction of millions of cattle.

After assuring people beef was safe, British officials later were forced to admit that some people apparently were infected with a human version of BSE by eating certain products. 

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