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PARIS
(AP) A French teen-ager believed to have been suffering
from the human variant of mad cow disease has died after
slowly losing the ability to walk, speak and breathe.
Arnaud
Eboli, 19, died Wednesday after fighting the brain-wasting
ailment for more than two years, according to the Association
of Victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
His
death marks France's third fatality from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
Disease, which is linked to the consumption of tainted beef.
In Britain, where mad cow disease was identified in 1995,
90 people have died of the disease.
Eboli,
once an athlete who excelled at skiing and martial arts,
lost the ability to bathe or feed himself. Before he died,
he was paralyzed and kept alive through a feeding tube.
Doctors
diagnosed Eboli in Dec. 1999, after a biopsy of his tonsils
detected traces of an infectious protein, prion, often found
in people suffering from the disease. The disease can only
be confirmed by a brain biopsy, usually after death.
Eboli's
family was one of two French families that filed a lawsuit
in November charging that French, British and European Union
authorities did not act quickly enough to wipe out mad cow
disease.
The
suit alleges that Eboli and Laurence Duhamel, who died in
1999 at age 36, were victims of poisoning and manslaughter.
France
has taken drastic measures such as outlawing certain at-risk
cuts of beef, like the T-bone steak to try to safeguard
public health.
New
cases of the animal ailment are expected to break out in
France until 2002 five years after agriculture authorities
took rigorous measures to prevent more outbreaks. About
150 cows were discovered with the disease in France last
year, compared to 31 the year before.
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