Health scare story of the decade

From The Grauniad, 18 December 2009:

More people may be incubating variant CJD, the human version of so-called "mad cow disease", than was previously thought, according to scientists who today report an unusual case of the disease. All those tested worldwide since 1994 when the first cases were identified have been MM homozygous.

However, a 30-year-old man who died of vCJD in January this year was found to have a different genetic makeup from the rest of the 200 or so people diagnosed around the world...

Wot? Two hundred people world-wide have been diagnosed with vCJD over the last sixteen years? Let's assume that 99.9% of cases are as yet undiagnosed, that would mean that ... er ... 0.003% of the world population is "incubating" (whatever that means) vCJD.

I can live with that sort of risk.