Human form of mad cow disease surfaces in New York

• Federal officials have investigated 20 cases for possible human mad cow disease in the last 10 years in New York, where state officials currently are looking into a cluster of five cases of a related disease, United Press International has learned.
• Five cases of what initially appeared to be a fatal, incurable brain illness known as Creutzfeldt Jakob disease recently have been reported in Ulster county and surrounding areas in southern New York.
• The cause of CJD is unknown, but it is such a rare disease -- striking only one person out of a million on average -- that a cluster of cases appearing in a small area would be unusual.
• "I believe there's definitely a problem in this area," said Brent Tobey, who lives in Ulster county and whose father, Richard Tobey, 59, died earlier this month after being diagnosed with CJD.
• According to documents obtained by UPI under the Freedom of Information Act last July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta investigated 20 cases in New York from 1994 to 2002 for the possibility of vCJD.
• "We don't see any threat to the public health here whatsoever," William Van Slyke, deputy commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, told UPI.
• "Nobody wants to talk to me about it."
• Although New York health officials talked to his stepmother about his father's death, officials never spoke with the other family members and the CDC has never contacted the family, Tobey said.
• A special review consists of obtaining as many details as possible about each case from medical reports and other sources to rule out vCJD and "we will be doing that with the state in this case," agency spokeswoman Christine Pearson told UPI.
• Pearson said that, at this point, no CDC officials are in the state investigating, but the agency will offer its expertise at the state's request.