Kansas man's death not tied to mad cow: officials

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Preliminary tests indicate that a 53-year-old Kansas man, who died on Friday, had the rare brain disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, which is not related to mad cow disease, health officials said on Wednesday.

However, it will be several weeks before final tests are completed to positively identify the disease.

A physician who treated the man had said the brain disease was "not the mad cow version," said a spokesman for the Wesley Medical Center in Wichita, where the man was treated.

Talk had circulated in the Chicago Mercantile Exchange cattle market early on Wednesday that the man might have died from variant CJD, which scientists believe can be contracted by eating contaminated parts from cattle with mad cow disease.

Normal CJD is naturally occurring and the Kansas Department of Health said the state averages about three cases a year.

"We have no reason to believe it is not anything but CJD," said Joe Blubaugh, spokesman for the Kansas Department of Health.

The United States has had three cases of mad cow disease in cattle.

(Reporting by Bob Burgdorfer; Editing by Christian Wiessner)