
The report was presented at the ID (infectious disease) week conference as an abstract called "Towards Earlier Diagnosis of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs): A Case Series, Including One Associated with Squirrel Brain Consumption."
The report identified a 61-year-old male who was diagnosed with the rare brain infection called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease after eating squirrel brains. He arrived at a hospital after suffering thinking problems and an impaired walk, according to the report. He died about five months after being diagnosed with the infection in 2015.
The disease is similar to "mad cow disease," which causes tiny holes to fill the brain until the tissue looks like a sponge (which is where '"spongiform" comes from), according to the National Institutes of Health.
The infection is always fatal, and most who get the disease live around a year. It causes rapid degeneration of memory, thinking, vision and coordination before causing dementia and death, according to the NIH.
It is part of a family of diseases caused by prions, which are infectious proteins that infiltrate the brain. Chronic wasting disease in deer is one example of a prion disease, as is fatal familial insomnia, a different brain infection affecting humans that removes the ability to sleep, eventually causing death.
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is extremely rare, with only four people ever confirmed to have the disease in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control.
The non-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is also rare, with only about 350 cases per year in the United States, according to the NIH. Most people develop the disease spontaneously, while a few inherit it. Some acquire it through other means, such as by ingesting infected tissue - which is what scientists suspect happened with the squirrel brains.
Tara Chen, a medical student who produced the report, said it wasn't entirely clear yet if the squirrel brains were the cause of the infection, and that researchers were trying to secure autopsy samples, according to LiveScience. Chen said it also wasn't clear if the man ate the brains themselves or meat that was contaminated with brain matter, according to the site.
Squirrel-brain transmission of the disease is not a new concern. Doctors in Kentucky put out a warning against eating squirrel brains in 1997 after 11 people were diagnosed in the state with the non-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, according to the New York Times.
"'All of them were squirrel-brain eaters,'' a doctor told the paper at the time.
Reader Comments
Noaw, ya haveta eat country squirrel, and as you know, country squirrels they taste like...
Chicken -- yes and city squirrels are overweight, in fact some are obese. They have ADHD, they have been eating at MacDonalds and Tim Hortons, and out of the garbage cans around the neighbourhood, and they are HUGELY fat, compared to country squirrels that are fitter and bright eyed and bushy tailed. Naturally muscular.
City squirrels are looney toons, in fact I saw one once that sitting on the edge of a window sill, looking at the Oprah Winfrey Show playing on the television on the other side of the window.
There he was, fat, and watching a stupid talk show, and munching away on a old bag of Doritos he found in the garbage can beside the house.
Imagine what that squirrel taste like...not chicken.
Yes country squirrels don't have any disease, they scrumptious on toast, with mayonaise (the real stuff) and a pickle.
Country squirrels eat nuts, and are a lot heathier and meaty.. and speaking of nuts country squirrels have the sexual habits of porn stars. Much fitter animals. Ya gotta be real good with your sling shot.
I see them all the time, in the trees, making sexually noises. I can hear them at night, ah well, making more baby squirrels.
Which now that I am on the topic are the most delicious.
Baby squirrels on toast, with a brushetta, and a light grading of pamesa cheese and salt and pepper -- pop it under the grill for a minute and a half. Bob's your uncle ...Hm hm hm hmmm. Scrumptious.
But you can be guranteed, their not a gay one in the mix. All true blue, males and females.
And no mad squirrel disease. And a bonus, you can make a whole winter mitt out of one country squirrel, has to be those big grey fellas.
Rocky, what are you thinking? Come on now tell me Rockster. Your not one of trans gendered people with weird 'wonderings' about sex and little animals. Are you a secret scritcher rocky?
OMG
I know your are worried about my spelling -- how are your feelings about capital letters and commas. Do you like them rockster.
here is a picture of rocky... it will sort things out for ya.