- LONDON (AP) - Scottish health authorities are investigating how tissue
from the eyes of a woman who had suffered from the human form of ``mad
cow disease'' was transplanted into three other people.
-
- ``We are aware there is a potential infection
risk from tissue retrieved from a patient in Scotland,'' a spokesman for
the government Scottish Office said Saturday on customary condition of
anonymity.
-
- ``We do not know the full facts, but
we are making urgent inquiries into how this could have occurred,'' he
said.
-
- The 53-year-old woman suffered from lung
cancer, but after she died a post-mortem examination showed she also had
Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease. The brain-destroying disease is the human form
of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which afflicts cattle and is known
as ``mad cow disease.''
-
- No further details were given on the
grounds of patient confidentiality.
-
- But the tabloid Sunday Mail said the
post-mortem findings were not passed on to officials handling organ donor
arrangements, and parts of her eyes, including the corneas, were transplanted
into two men and a woman in her eighties.
-
- AP-NY-11-30-97 1224EST
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