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Published online 23 June 2006 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news060619-12
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CJD-related disease can incubate for 50 years
Last living cannibals aid predictions for modern prion epidemic.
People in Papua New Guinea who once feasted on their own relatives succumbed to prion disease as much as half a century later, say scientists who have laboriously tracked down the last sufferers in remote villages.
The discovery renews concerns that another prion disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), might also be incubating silently and will only rear its head decades from now.
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