An article from The Wall Street Journal about a prion disease that destroys the brain. This is a subject I’ve long been interested in. CWD is not known to spread to humans, but other types, specifically kuru and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) are considered transmissible. It is believed that eating beef from cattle infected with BSE can lead to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and was a concern in the UK for a time.
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Deer Disease Spreads in U.S., With Limited Funds for Tests

BY BEN KESLING

During Missouri’s rifle-hunting season, state conservation officials in more than two dozen locations spend 12 hours a day removing and testing lymph nodes from the heads of deer carcasses brought in by hunters. They are looking for chronic wasting disease, a deadly and incurable condition on the rise across the country.

“It’s a growing problem,” said Erin Shank, a biologist at the Missouri Department of Conservation. “It’s going one direction and it’s not the direction we want it to go.”

The disease was first found in a captive deer in Colorado in the 1960s and in wild deer in the 1980s. But in the 2000s the disease began to spread faster. It has been detected in 29 states, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some states, including Colorado, are now finding more than 5% of herds infected in some areas, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Above that 5% threshold, infection rates begin to rise exponentially and populations stagnate or decline.

Chronic wasting disease, known as CWD, is a neurological condition akin to mad-cow disease or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease found in humans. With these diseases, pathogens called prions lead to brain damage and death. The prions can take years to cause symptoms— which include weight loss, lack of coordination, drooling and lack of fear of humans—and then cause certain death. Scientists haven’t been able to fully research and understand how prions work or a way to cure them, according to the CDC.

Scientists said they know of no case of the disease being transmitted to humans through tainted venison or other means. But studies showing its risks to nonhuman primates raise concerns, according to the CDC.

That leaves scientists like Ms. Shank scrambling to fight the spread with limited tools and funding—a situation that proposed federal legislation seeks to address. Chronic wasting disease affects cervids, animals like deer and elk. Because the disease has an incubation period of years, hunters might kill and harvest infected animals that have no outward signs of infection.

“CWD is arguably the single largest threat to the future of deer-management programs and deer hunting,” said Kip Adams, chief conservation officer with the National Deer Association.

LINK

For the time being, prions found in cervids (deer, elk, moose, etc) have no effect on humans or canids. The scary thing about them is their longevity in bare soil (2 years or more), resistance to destruction by heat (up to several hundred degrees) chemicals (commonly used sterilization methods for, say, surgical equipment). In short, as long as wild animals can harbor them, they aren’t going away, ever. If CWD ever jumps the species barrier to humans, it would be unstoppable and there’d be no way to avoid getting it eventually.

CWD has been a growing topic on a number of the hunting forums I am a part of. From my very basic and honestly limited interest in researching it there is literally nothing we can do to actually manage or eradicate the disease. Several game commissions have gone to the extreme and tried to eradicate herds in zones after having very few test positive for it. The fact that the prions are able to survive in the soil for an unknown time makes it impossible to stop.

**** Tin foil hat time ****
It's been shown to not show the jump to humans or any other animal species. I'm beginning to view it as more of a scare tactic to discourage the population from hunting and digesting clean meat. CWD typically takes years to show an effect which at that point your talking a mature animal. I'd be more concerned if reports began to show that fawns and yearlings are passing due to CWD vs a mature animal. We all know that hunting in general is looked down upon by a certain class of people and they would like nothing more then to completely ban it. What better way to do so, without actually doing it then claiming that the meat is tainted and unsafe for consumption? A deer or elk who has CWD, but not showing signs is still better meat then what we typically purchase from the grocery store or eat in a restaurant which has been provided typically chemically altered food to increase animal yield.

quote:

Originally posted by 98XJRC:
I'm beginning to view it as more of a scare tactic ....

Makes sense. The CJD scare was probably an attempt to get the British to stop eating beef and drawing a supposed link between kuru and eating their ancestors’ brains was no doubt to discourage cannibalism by the Fore people.

I haven’t checked recently, but as I understand it, the fact that I visited the UK for a time in the 1980s and therefore could have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease through eating contaminated beef was why I couldn’t be a blood donor. I always figured that that would be a convenient excuse if I ever started doing irrational things in later life. With a supposed incubation period of up to 50 years, I guess it’s still possible to make that claim if necessary.

The PA Game Commission has CWD boxes at different locations, where you drop the deer's head off for testing. There's one at the township building about two miles from our house. It's been there for a few years & I seriously doubt anybody's ever used it.

It’s an excellent argument for addressing the gross overpopulation of deer/eliminating the breeding operations/maybe ending game farms and go back to market hunting, if that’s what it takes to get the population to a healthy level.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
I haven’t checked recently, but as I understand it, the fact that I visited the UK for a time in the 1980s and therefore could have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease through eating contaminated beef was why I couldn’t be a blood donor. I always figured that that would be a convenient excuse if I ever started doing irrational things in later life. With a supposed incubation period of up to 50 years, I guess it’s still possible to make that claim if necessary.

After living and working in London for a year and a half in the mid 80’s I was turned away from donating blood in the 90s. When I asked a few years later “Isn’t there a test?” the response was, “Yes, but it involves dissecting the brain.” “Okay. I’d like to donate, but I’m not that dedicated.”

Then just the other day I got a letter from Vitalant (a blood bank in the area) that due to changes I’m eligible to donate again. Following up with them is on my to do list.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
....If CWD ever jumps the species barrier to humans, it would be unstoppable and there’d be no way to avoid getting it eventually.

Unfortunately I would not be surprised if this is being "researched" now.

I do not know the answer to this so I will ask.
I was once told as long as you do not eat any part of the brain or central nervous system from the animal you are okay, is this true?

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
It’s an excellent argument for addressing the gross overpopulation of deer/eliminating the breeding operations/maybe ending game farms and go back to market hunting, if that’s what it takes to get the population to a healthy level.

Any time animal densities grow too large, a disease eventually starts natural culling.

Ever read about the 1908's Alaskan King Crab boom and collapse? F&G gave out too many commercial black cod permits (to foreigners). Black cod preyed extensively on baby King Crab, but without predation the King Crab population exploded. Fishermen made fantastic amounts of money for 2-3 years. Then a disease spread through the crabs, and crab numbers plummeted.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
It’s an excellent argument for addressing the gross overpopulation of deer/eliminating the breeding operations/maybe ending game farms and go back to market hunting, if that’s what it takes to get the population to a healthy level.

Any time animal densities grow too large, a disease eventually starts natural culling.

I've long held (though I have no scientific evidence to back it up) that overpopulation is what is behind this. The areas that I've seen it are essentially overrun with deer (upper midwest).

We've now got it in northwest MT in areas where, you guessed it, there's an overpopulation of deer. The fish and game out here have so mismanaged these areas for the past 25 years that I fear it's only going to get worse. Last year they began finding CWD in elk and moose, as well as deer.

Had an outbreak of CWD in WI near the Yoop border a couple of years ago but I have not heard anything about it recently.

The best way to get rid of CWD is to eat it

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
[A]s long as you do not eat any part of the brain or central nervous system from the animal you are okay, is this true?

Based on what I’ve read, there have been no reported cases of humans developing prion disease resulting from eating animals infected with chronic wasting disease in deer or related animals.

It’s strongly believed, though, that a form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the “variant” form, or vCJD, was acquired by some people by eating meat from infected cattle, primarily in Britain. According to this article, the greatest danger is posed by eating brain, spinal cord, and some other tissues, but there is some danger in eating other tissues of an infected animal. At one time the types of infective tissue could end up in mechanically processed meat of the sort common in ground meat or sausages.

There were also a few reported cases in which it’s believed the disease was transmitted from one human to another via blood transfusions. Other cases were believed to have been caused by cross contamination via surgical instruments; ordinary sterilization methods don’t inactivate prions.

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:
I do not know the answer to this so I will ask.
I was once told as long as you do not eat any part of the brain or central nervous system from the animal you are okay, is this true?

Deer CWD does not seem to affect humans at all.

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Thank you for the replies.

In western PA, they could chronically waste 4/5th of them and there'd still be WAY too many around IMO.

quote:

Originally posted by r0gue:
In western PA, they could chronically waste 4/5th of them and there'd still be WAY too many around IMO.

A huge part of this is lack of public access. Many areas where the deer population is over capacity there is little to no public land. If you look at the doe tags made available each year both Philly and Pittsburgh areas have a mass amount of tags available and every year they are the last areas to sell out if at all. While there is a high deer density people just can’t hunt them.

Compare that to the mountain regions with mass amounts of public land where they issue a lower quantity of doe tags due to the deer density being significantly lower. It all comes down to access and available hunters in that region.

I stopped hunting them years ago when CWD first appeared since there was little known about the disease. There were some cases on the border west of Winchester.

I was giving them to Hunters for Hunger and didn't want to be responsible for any bad outcome.

They are over populated on my property in Loudoun County. At the time, you could get additional permits to take three more for $15. One year, I shot nine. From my tree stand to the back of the field was 120 yards and a 243 doesn't seem to scare them so it is possible to drop two.