Humans can spread mad cow disease

♦ The human strain of the mad cow brain disease can be passed between people, it has emerged. New research by Case Western Reserve University in Ohio on Creutzfeldt-jakob disease (CJD) – which kills around 90 people a year in Britain – has shown the abnormal proteins which cause CJD are present in the skin of survivors, and could cause an infection if they entered the bloodstream of another individual.