BLOOD contaminated with the human form of mad cow disease could spread the disease to at least 1 in 10 of people unlucky enough to be given it. Even filtering out certain components before transfusion might not be enough to prevent infection.
No one has got vCJD from a blood transfusion yet. And the risk of this happening is low because there have been few cases of the disease so far. Nevertheless, a long-running experiment in which 24 sheep were given blood infected with BSE suggests the disease can indeed spread this way. Two years ago it was revealed that…
