Thirteen New England patients possibly exposed to fatal brain disease

By Richard Valdmanis BOSTON (Reuters) – Thirteen people who recently underwent neurosurgery in Massachusetts and New Hampshire may have been exposed to a rare and fatal brain condition similar to “mad cow” disease because of potentially infected surgical instruments. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said on Thursday that five patients treated at Cape Cod Hospital between June and August are at low risk of infection for the disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). …