When she was 23, a lab worker pricked her thumb in an experiment with prion-infected mice. She died 10 years later

Emilie Jaumain died in 2019 at the age of 33. She had Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a fatal brain disease. Jaumain accidentally pricked her thumb with lab equipment that had been exposed to prion-infected mice when she was 23.

There was another case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease this year in France — a retired lab worker who worked with prions.

France has now issued a moratorium on prions research for three months.

From Science Mag:

There had been at least 17 accidents among the 100 or so scientists and technicians in France working with prions in the previous decade, five of whom stabbed or cut themselves with contaminated syringes or blades. Another technician at the same lab had a fingerprick accident with prions in 2005, but has not developed vCJD symptoms so far, Bensimhon says. "It is shocking that no precautionary measures were taken then to ensure such an accident never happened again," he says.

[image: By DRdoubleB – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0]