Britain reports first evidence of hemophiliac with mad cow disease

LONDON — British experts said today that they have found the first evidence of a hemophiliac contracting mad cow disease from contaminated blood products.

The Health Protection Agency said evidence of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, an incurable disease that eats holes in the brain, was found in the spleen of an elderly man who died of an unrelated condition.

The man had shown no symptoms of mad cow. He had been treated with one batch of Factor VIII, a blood-clotting protein, taken from a donor who developed symptoms six months after donating blood in 1996.

Rules were tightened in 1999 to prevent the spread of the disease.

“This finding does not change our understanding of the risk from vCJD for other people in any specific way,” said Professor Mike Catchpole, director of the HPA’s center for infections. “But it does reinforce the importance of the precautionary measures that have been taken over the years.”