LETTER : Does BSE in the Sunday joint cause Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease?

From Mrs Meryl Johnson

Sir: With reference to Peter Popham's article on BSE, my father regularly ate sheep's brains during the war - they were considered a great delicacy. If BSE originally comes from sheep's brains, why was this not noticed before now? Or do we assume that some people have been wrongly diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease.

He last ate brains in 1969 or 1970 when he asked a friend in the wholesale meat business to get him some. What he got was a sheep's head, and he had to get the contents out himself. It put the whole family off their Sunday lunch the following week.

My father lived until his early sixties and died of a heart attack. Was he one of the lucky ones?

Yours faithfully,

M. Johnson

Ware, Hertfordshire

25 October