WASHINGTON — A Saudi-born man living in Virginia has been identified as the third reported U.S. case of a human form of mad cow disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The man, whose case was reported to the CDC by the Virginia Department of Health, has variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, or vCJD, the CDC said on its Web site. This is a carefully diagnosed, brain-destroying illness that scientists believe is caused by eating beef products from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as BSE, or mad cow disease. ‘This U.S. case-patient was most likely infected from contaminated cattle products consumed as a child when living in Saudi Arabia,’ the CDC said in its report, posted on the Internet at http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/vcjd/other/vCJD_112906.htm. ‘The current patient has no history of donating blood and the public health investigation has identified no risk of transmission to U.S. residents from this patient.’ BSE swept through British herds in the 1980s, and people began developing an odd, early-onset form of CJD a few years later. CJD normally affects one in a million people globally, usually the elderly, as it has a long incubation period. There […]