Burnbank family want answers over sons death from vCJD

Jan 21 2010 by Alastair McNeill, Hamilton Advertiser

A DEVASTATED dad is still trying to find out how his 30-year-old son came to die from the human form of ‘mad cow disease.’

Grant Goodwin, whose parents Thomas and Margaret live in Burnbank, is thought to be the first person in the world with a specific gene type to succumb to variant CJD.

The former Glenlee Primary and Blantyre High pupil died of the degenerative illness in January of last year.

Grant’s dad this week described as “horrendous” his son’s condition in the months before his death. Symptoms included loss of memory, depression, hallucinations and unsteadiness.

Mr Goodwin, a production foreman at Philips in Hamilton, pointed to a long incubation period for vCJD and said his son’s death may have been due to the baby food he had eaten as a child.

He told the Advertiser he had now written to a major baby food manufacturer informing them of Grant’s death. He is awaiting a response.

He said: “I want to know why Grant died.

“His death shows the CJD outbreak is far from over.

“It has now jumped gene types.

“I will keep looking for answers and I want to hold the people responsible to account.”

After leaving school Grant worked as a heavy plant engineer.

However, after 10 years there he decided to see a bit of the world, visiting Australia and London before settling in the Channel Islands.

It was there the disease took hold and his worried family flew him back to Scotland in August, 2008, to consult medical experts.

Mr Goodwin (49) added: “It had affected his balance and also his memory.

“His mum had visited him in May that year for his birthday, and the change in him was unbelievable.

“When I saw him after he got off the plane at Edinburgh Airport he was staggering.

“I couldn’t believe the change in Grant physically and mentally.”

Grant was taken to Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride straight away and was later transferred to the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow where a whole series of tests and MRI scans were carried out.

Mr Goodwin described being informed by doctors that Grant had a variant form of CJD – with only six months to live – as a “hammer blow”.

He added: “We took it as best we could. I don’t think Grant at that stage really had the sense to take it in. He was scared of the illness and went to bed every night expecting to die.”

Grant spent Christmas 2008 at home and his final days in St Andrew’s Hospice.

“Watching him was absolutely heartbreaking,” said his dad.

“He was a very well-liked person who got on well with everybody.

“More than a year down the line things haven’t got any better.

“They’ve got worse because I’ve had to fight to get Grant recognised as dying of vCJD.”

Of about 200 cases of vCJD identified around the world, all of the people involved had the ‘M M (homozygous)’ gene type.

Grant, however, was the first person with the ‘M V (heterozygous)’ gene type to die from the human variant of CJD.