MMmmmm...Squirrel
Out of context: Reply #11
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Culinary preparations include scrambling the brains with eggs or putting them in a meat and vegetable stew referred to as "burgoo". A history of eating squirrel brains was obtained from family members of all five patients with probable or definite CJD seen over 3,5 years in a neurocognitive clinic in western Kentucky. Two women and three men aged from 56 to 78 years (mean 68.2 years) were affected. None were related and each lived in a different town. Eating squirrel brains was reported among 12 of 42 patients with Parkinson's disease seen in the same clinic and 27 of 100 age-matched controls without neurological disease living in western Kentucky. Ataxia early in the course of the disease was seen in four of the patients with CJD and myoclonus and periodic complexes on the electroencephalogram were seen in all.
Death occurred within 1 year in four, whereas, survival exceeded 3 years from the onset of symptoms in one patient. Analysis of codon 129 of the prion protein gene was not done. This observation will require confirmation by studies of larger populations, and a search for a scrapie agent in the brains of squirrels, which have not heretofore been reported as having spongiform encephalopathies. In the meantime caution might be exercised in the ingestion of this arboreal rodent.