* The concern about CJD is due to its transmission. Since early growth hormones were extracted from human pituitaries, the chance of CJD being transmitted from an infected brain is present. Also, there have been reports of people who received growth hormone treatments being affected by CJD.
The relationship between CJD and human growth hormone therapy has not been sufficiently established. Even so, there are connections between them. Findings include that of people who were found to have CJD, these people had undergone hormone treatment for nine years. Another is that all patients that had CJD received treatments before 1977.
What is known for now is that people who received treatment after 1977 did not exhibit symptoms of CJD. In 1977, the National Hormone and Pituitary Program introduced a new purification stage that greatly reduced the chances of CJD infection. Another is that there are no known cases of people who were treated with biosynthetic hormones reporting CJD. What can be said for certain is that when you received treatment after 1977, or are using hormones that are biosynthetic, then you are not under the risk of contracting CJD.
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