Have you noticed the disconnected? MCD, on some accounts, is supposed to be limited to brain and nerve tissue and not found in muscle meat. So, why the concern about the blood supply? Who isn't talking?

http://www.boston.com/dailynews/108/world/WINNIPEG_AP_Spend_too_many_sum:.shtml

WINNIPEG (AP) Spend too many summers with relatives in England,... By Associated Press, 4/18/2001 19:29 WINNIPEG (AP) Spend too many summers with relatives in England, and you can't donate blood.

The Canadian Blood Services is now looking at turning away even more people because of fears over mad-cow disease.

''I think it's fairly safe to assume that we are looking at some form of extension of the deferral policy that we currently have in place,'' Dr. Graham Sher said at a public board meeting of the blood service Wednesday.

Sher, vice-president of medical, scientific and clinical management for the blood service, said it could also mean a departure from the current policy.

That policy focuses on two areas the United Kingdom and France where there have been confirmed cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human variant of bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad-cow disease.

''If we were to include Western Europe, what we would be then doing is to defer donors who have traveled to areas where there is a BSE risk but as yet no reported cases of human variant CJD.''

The CBS won't take blood from anyone who has spent more than six months over a 20-year period in the United Kingdom. Unlike the United States, which has a similar policy, the Canadian blood agency extends those restrictions to France as well, where Creutzfeldt-Jakob has also been found.

[snip]

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001