Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

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# 92000E4087

**WRITTEN QUESTION E-4087/00 by Graham Watson (ELDR) to the Commission. Variant CJD ‐ the human form of BSE.** 
  
*Official Journal 187 E , 03/07/2001 P. 0129 - 0130*

  

WRITTEN QUESTION E-4087/00

by Graham Watson (ELDR) to the Commission

(10 January 2001)

Subject: Variant CJD the human form of BSE

Does the Commission agree that variant CJD should be renamed Human Spongiform Encepalopathy?

What is the European Union doing to encourage the exchange of medical experience in treating this condition?

Answer given by Mr Byrne on behalf of the Commission

(28 February 2001)

1. In 1996, a team from the United Kingdom Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) Surveillance Unit at Edinburgh, published a paper(1) in which the authors reported findings which strongly implied a causal link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and a variant of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease (vCJD).

Although showing some significant neurological differences from the classical sporadic form, vCJD is classified as a human neurodegenerative disease. It is named, indeed, after the person who investigated the classical form of disease and therefore is firmly consolidated and accepted by the scientific and medical world as vCJD.

2. The Commission launched a European Action Plan for TSE(2) research in 1996 which has mobilised 50 million to promote understanding, detection and combating of TSEs, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in man and BSE in cows. About 150 laboratories are presently involved in 54 Community-funded research projects on TSE diseases, which are addressing issues such as human prion diseases, the infectious agent, risk assessment, treatment and prevention.

In particular, it is worth mentioning a project on the development of TSE treatment based on prion protein-binding sugars, which includes research teams from Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Israel which aims primarily at identifying the mechanisms of inhibition of prion multiplication in cultured cells.

Furthermore the Commission, on 15 December 2000, organised a meeting of national experts in TSE research in order to analyse ongoing research activities, encourage exchange of information between research teams and identify ongoing research topics which need strengthening as well as new research areas. This group will present an interim report shortly.

Article 152.5 (ex Article 129) of the EC Treaty States that Community action in the field of public health shall fully respect the responsibilities of the Member States for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care mldr. The Commission will however consider possibilities for promoting exchange of information on the best treatment for vCJD, which could be addressed within the framework of the new public health programme(3) currently under discussion in Parliament and Council.

(1) R. G. Will et al., The Lancet 1996: 347;921-25, also available on www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/lancet.htm).

(2) Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE).

(3) OJ C 337 E, 28.11.2000 and COM(2000) 285 final.

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