Family finds hospital willing to give experimental CJD treatment

A teenager suffering from variant CJD, the human form of mad cow disease, is to have unprecedented treatment with a drug injected into his brain after the high court in Belfast gave the go-ahead.

Jonathan Simms, 18, from Belfast, is expected to have the treatment with pentosan polysulphate within weeks after a Northern Ireland hospital agreed that it could be carried out in its operating theatres.

His family, which is desperate for him to have the pioneering treatment in a last attempt to slow down the progress of the disease, was forced back to court after winning a …