First commercial CJD tests offered


16 April 1998


First commercial CJD tests offered

BIOTECHNOLOGY company Electrophoretics International is offering the first commercial testing service for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

Scientists believe eating meat from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) can lead to CJD.

The company said it was only offering the test to hospital consultants specialising in neurological diseases and that it would not be available to general practitioners or the public.

Dr James Ironside, a neuropathologist at the CJD Surveillance Unit at Western general Hospital in Edinburgh, said the test was not “reliable or specific” and that neurological specialists could already perform the tests themselves.

  • Financial Times 16/04/98 page 21

See more