November 2, 2000
		Britain admits fatalities of Mad Cow disease could grow much larger British Agriculture Secretary Nick Brown admitted Sunday, October 29 that the number of people who will die from the human form of mad cow disease, also known as new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), could grow "much, much larger" than was previously thought. He denied, however, that the British government was putting the public at greater risk by easing food safety controls. Brown, speaking on the BBC the day after a 14-year-old girl died of CJD said, "We don't know. The range of predictions are coming down, but these are just predictions." Brown also refused to comment on reports that the death toll as a result of CJD-infection could top 100,000. Although many victims have probably been unidentified because the only way to detect CJD is through an autopsy, 81 people are confirmed to have died of it so far, and 5 more are suspected. Plans were also announced to compensate victims of the disease in response to an official report that concluded that the government had misled the public for years about the dangers of tainted beef and the likelihood of contracting CJD from it. "When we took the decision to enhance the care package for the victims of human BSE [bovine spongiform encephalopathy]... we were very mindful that the numbers to whom this would apply could be much, much larger than they are now." Brown also refuted a report published in the Independent newspaper that said that because Britain had abandoned a six-year ban on potentially dangerous offal from calves, it meant that "powerful public protection measures" were being dismantled. The report also said that officials were slow to respond to evidence of BSE's threat to human health, and had a six-month delay in informing the public after government scientists discovered it in late 1995. In other British CJD news, 14-year-old Zoe Jeffries was the latest fatality of the disease on October 28. Zoe died at her home in northern England. Helen Jeffries, Zoe's mother, said that she felt guilty for buying hamburgers, which she feels caused her daughter's death. "They were the cheapest ones. Zoe ate them probably three times a week."