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Published online 28 August 2005 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news050822-11
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Blood test detects deadly prions
Process could one day halt unwitting spread of brain disease in humans.
For years, experts have feared that thousands of people are unknowingly carrying and transmitting the human form of mad cow disease: new-variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). Now a blood test could help to ease their worries, or confirm their worst nightmare.
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