Cherry Hill Cluster

Auburn, April 29, 2004 --- Janet Skarbek thinks she’s onto something --- something so big that it may bring the current federal strategy for containing mad cow disease crashing down around us.

It began in 2003 when the noted self-help author was reading an obituary in a local paper concerning a woman who had died of the same brain disorder --- Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease --- that had killed Skarbek’s friend several years earlier. A form of this disease, known as variant CJD, is considered the human equivalent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, so-called mad cow disease, and is presumably caused by eating tainted beef.

That fact alone got Skarbek’s attention, but what almost bowled her over was the next paragraph stating that the victim had worked at the same Cherry Hill, N.J., racetrack where her friend had been employed. “Could the victims have contracted the disease from eating tainted beef at the racetrack’s restaurant?” she wondered.

For Skarbek, this marked the beginning of a long quest involving a careful study of CJD cases within the Cherry Hill area. She has uncovered 13 deaths from CJD --- virtually all of which, she contends, can be traced to the racetrack from 1988 to 1992.

Bizarre? Yes, without a doubt. Convincing? Not quite, according to one expert.

“At this point, all we know for sure is that Skarbek has amassed a set of facts that probably would frighten most people,” said Dr. Jean Weese, Alabama Cooperative Extension System food scientist and Auburn University associate professor of nutrition and food science.

Skarbek, Weese said, still has to establish a conclusive link between the CJD cases and the racetrack --- a task that has eluded her.

Another major, possibly even fatal, flaw in Skarbek’s argument is that none of the cases associated with Cherry Hill have been identified with the variant form of Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease linked with eating tainted beef, Weese said. Rather, the cases have been associated with the far more common sporadic form CJD, which is not linked to beef. The damage sporadic CJD causes the brain is very different from the variant form of the disease, and the likelihood of misdiagnosis in all 13 cases is highly remote, Weese said.

Skarbek, who has heard this argument before, maintains the cluster of CJD cases associated with Cherry Hill represents something entirely new and different --- a new form of CJD that possibly originated in the United States. Still, Weese is still not convinced.

“Even if this were true, it’s still a stretch to assume it’s somehow connected to the variant form of CJD,” she said.

The simplest explanation, Weese said, is that it is an offshoot of the sporadic CJD, especially considering that the brain damage sustained more closely resembles this form of the disease.

As further proof of a link to mad cow disease, Skarbek points to the bizarre fact that five deaths have occurred within a two-county area of northern New Jersey within the past 15 months --- a significantly higher rate than otherwise would be projected.

Yet, even this, Weese said, does not provide conclusive proof of a link to the racetrack.

“True, the large number of outbreaks is strangely coincidental, but so are a lot of other odd occurrences, such as when lightening strikes more than once in the same place for no reason,” Weese said.

Also, while it’s true that the number of CJD deaths occurring within the past 15 months vastly exceeds the rate that otherwise would have been projected for the two counties, this has had no effect on the number of deaths projected for the entire state --- a fact also pointed out by Steven Milloy, a noted mad cow debunker.

“It may turn out that the five deaths in the two-county area may simply be a fluke,” Weese said.

[Source: Dr. Jean Weese, Alabama Cooperative Extension System Food Scientist and AU Associate Professor of Nutrition and Food Science, 334-844-3269; Writer: Jim Langcuster, Extension Communications Specialist (334) 844-5686.]

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