the death of a laboratory worker from Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease improved by a work accident
In one message sent internally to all agents of the institute, Philippe Mauguin, CEO of INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment), confirms that the deaths of two laboratory technicians, one of whom officiated in Toulouse, consequences of the Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) are fine related to an accident at work.
As an employer, I wanted, in view of the various concordant elements of these two dramas, that we could assume the probable nature of the professional origin death contaminationeven though science can’t establish it yet with certainty”, indicates the CEO of INRAE in this document.
Retired, one of them worked at the INREA-ENVT laboratory in Toulouse
The two women are deceased in 2019 and 2021 consequences of this pathology. The laboratory assistants exercised on prions, proteins at the origin of CJD. In 2010, Émilie Jaumain had injured during an experiment. She succumbed to the disease in 2019. In November 2021, another technician, who worked at the INRAE-ENVT laboratory in Toulouse, who died of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. Retired, she said two accidents at work in 2004 and 2005.
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Following the first death, a scientific publication published in 2020 on the study of the routes of contamination by infectious prion has, for the first time, hypothesized occupational contamination by a brief contact, by simple sting, with contaminated material”, explains Philippe Mauguin.
An announcement that allows compensation measures
Since the announcement of the second case, INRAE and all the research establishments had stopped “as a precaution all manipulations on infectious prions for the time it takes to shed light on the circumstances that may have led to the contamination”, continues Philippe Mauguin.
The latter having explained “proposed to our Board of Directors that INRAE take a position on the link between the development of Creuztfeldt-Jakob disease (new variant) and accidents at work, by puncture or cut with contaminated material”.
A measure voted unanimously “which will allow the institute official recognition and compensation measures for the families concerned“, he specifies, assuring that the management teams of INRAE ”are working on theevolution of protective devices at the best possible level, before any resumption of activities” on infectious prions.
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