WOMENS-HEALTH Messages for April, 1998: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and Fertility Drugs

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and Fertility Drugs

From: DebbieOney (anonymous@obgyn.net)
Wed, 29 Apr 1998 20:23:21 EDT

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I have some concern about human gonadotrophins (FSH, LH, and HMG) and the risk of the women taking them getting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the infectious fatal brain-deteriorating disease related to mad cow disease.

I have read that women who had taken human gonadotropin shots in the 1980s and before for fertility problems are at high risk of getting CJD and that 6 have done so so far in Australia. A couple weeks ago I read in an article THE THIRD WORLD AND INFERTILE WOMEN: THE WOULD-BE VICTIMS AND INVISIBLE VICTIMS OF MAD COW AND CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE IMPERIALISTS by Dr. Lynette J. Dumble, Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne's Department of Surgery, at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville, Vic., 3050, Australia. which said that women in the United States also had the human gonadotrophin shots for infertility in the 1980s and before and that there was shredding of records of American gynecologists and casting aside concern about the resultant children. The website for this article is http://www.airtime.co.uk/bse/lynete.htm

Then last week I read that the gonadotrophins used in infertility treatment, HMG, FSH and LH, are secreted by the pituitary gland and extracted from the urine of postmenopausal women and are sold under various brand names. I'm concerned that these hormones could put women who have taken them at high risk for CJD because of their connection with the pituitary gland. And, the fact that the women whose urine they are extracted from are, according to what I read, postmenopausal worries me even more because the older a person is the more likely they are to be incubating CJD.

Is this worry founded? Are women taking these hormones at high risk for CJD? Are their resultant children? Why aren't synthetics being used? Is there any research on this? I know the incubation period is long for CJD so that would make epidemilogical studies difficult but are any laboratory studies being done or have any been done as to the infectiousness of the hormones? Would the manufacturing process inactivate the CJD agent were it there?

Thanks for any informaiton.

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