A Tragic Chapter in Medicine: Exploring Possible Transmission of Alzheimer’s Disease Through Cadaver-Derived HGH
<p>The news was staggering: could Alzheimer’s disease have spread amongst recipients of a controversial growth hormone treatment derived from human cadavers in the 1980s? A recently published study reexamined this disturbing possibility, unearthing uncomfortable questions about an obscure chapter in medicine some would rather forget. Yet understanding how we failed, as the article from US News explores, remains crucially important so history does not unjustly repeat. Let us delve deeper into this sobering story and its lingering lessons.</p>
<p>As the opening paragraphs outline, a team of international experts reanalyzed health records and brain tissue from over 100 adults who developed premature Alzheimer’s after receiving growth hormone from the Pituitary Program at the National Hormone and Pituitary Program beforebetter screening was implemented in 1985. Their findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Neurology, concluded “with 95% certainty” that this variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (varCJD), the human form of mad cow disease, had likely spread through contaminated cadaver extracts during the hormone purification process.</p>
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