Family’s new hope as son with CJD no longer classed terminally ill

THE longest-surviving victim of ‘mad cow disease’ is no longer considered terminally ill, carers in Belfast have decided.

Jonathan Simms, aged 19, was diagnosed with variant CJD in May 2001 after the talented footballer had problems balancing, and doctors believed he had not long to live.

But his family fought a lengthy and costly legal battle to allow him to be treated with a controversial drug, pentosan polysulphate, which had not been tested on humans.