posted
Hunters are urged to beware risk of disease when handling venison
February 9, 2006
By Jeff Nesmith Cox News Service
WASHINGTON -- Officials of animal rights and consumer groups warned Wednesday that deer hunters should be cautious about handling and eating venison because the meat could contain infectious levels of an agent that causes brain disease in animals.
Chronic wasting disease, a fatal form of brain degeneration, has been spreading among wild deer in several Eastern states for at least a decade.
CWD and "mad cow disease," also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and the human form of the disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, are all caused by aberrant prion proteins.
During the past decade, the bovine form was responsible for the deaths of more than 150 people who ate infected beef in Europe.
No cases of the brain disease among Americans have been traced to the beef prion, and there have been no confirmed human cases of CWD.
But scientists at the University of Kentucky reported last week that unlike the beef disease, levels of the aberrant deer protein sufficient to cause infection are found not only in nerve tissue but also in the muscle, the part of the animal that is eaten.
The discovery means persons who handle or eat meat from CWD-infected deer are at risk of exposure to the aberrant prion, the scientists said.
Spokesmen for the Humane Society of the United States and Consumers Union said the discovery should raise new fears about handling or consuming meat from deer, elk and even moose, especially from areas where the CWD prion is known to be circulating among wild animals.
"Since we now know that the part of the deer people eat can have the prion, you should have the animal tested, especially if it comes from an area where the disease is spreading," said Michael Hansen, a Consumers Union research associate.
Hundreds of infected deer have been found in Wisconsin, both in the wild and on commercial deer farms, where the disease first appeared in 2001. Smaller numbers have shown up in 10 other Eastern states.
Some states, including Georgia, have banned shipments of deer from other states.
Dr. Michael Greger, a physician who directs public health and animal agriculture work at the Humane Society of the United States, said diseased deer prions could enter a state in animal feed.
"What happens to road-kill deer? It goes straight to a rendering plant, then it gets fed back to deer, as well as cattle and other livestock," he said.
He said that human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is so poorly understood that no one knows the true origin of so-called "sporadic" cases.
The Kentucky researchers, headed by microbiologist Glenn C. Telling, reported in Science that they had successfully infected laboratory mice with CWD taken from the muscle tissue of infected deer.
They did this by grinding up muscle tissue from deer and injecting it directly into the brains of the mice that had been genetically engineered to have deer prions rather than normal mouse prions. That made them more susceptible to a disease caused by a diseased deer prion.
In the only known case in which a CWD prion was injected into mice engineered to have human prions, there was no evidence of transmission, said Dr. Ermias Belay, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
"After two years, none of the mice developed CWD," he said. In that experiment, the infected prions came from elk, not deer, he noted.
The time between a person's exposure to an aberrant prion and the first sign of symptoms is often more than a decade.
Therefore, CDC is working with state health officials in Colorado and Wyoming to study the extent of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease among persons who have been issued hunting licenses for years.
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quote:Originally posted by lymeloco: Hunters are urged to beware risk of disease when handling venison
February 9, 2006
By Jeff Nesmith Cox News Service
WASHINGTON -- Officials of animal rights and consumer groups warned Wednesday that deer hunters should be cautious about handling and eating venison because the meat could contain infectious levels of an agent that causes brain disease in animals.
Chronic wasting disease, a fatal form of brain degeneration, has been spreading among wild deer in several Eastern states for at least a decade.
CWD and "mad cow disease," also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and the human form of the disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, are all caused by aberrant prion proteins.
During the past decade, the bovine form was responsible for the deaths of more than 150 people who ate infected beef in Europe.
No cases of the brain disease among Americans have been traced to the beef prion, and there have been no confirmed human cases of CWD.
But scientists at the University of Kentucky reported last week that unlike the beef disease, levels of the aberrant deer protein sufficient to cause infection are found not only in nerve tissue but also in the muscle, the part of the animal that is eaten.
The discovery means persons who handle or eat meat from CWD-infected deer are at risk of exposure to the aberrant prion, the scientists said.
Spokesmen for the Humane Society of the United States and Consumers Union said the discovery should raise new fears about handling or consuming meat from deer, elk and even moose, especially from areas where the CWD prion is known to be circulating among wild animals.
"Since we now know that the part of the deer people eat can have the prion, you should have the animal tested, especially if it comes from an area where the disease is spreading," said Michael Hansen, a Consumers Union research associate.
Hundreds of infected deer have been found in Wisconsin, both in the wild and on commercial deer farms, where the disease first appeared in 2001. Smaller numbers have shown up in 10 other Eastern states.
Some states, including Georgia, have banned shipments of deer from other states.
Dr. Michael Greger, a physician who directs public health and animal agriculture work at the Humane Society of the United States, said diseased deer prions could enter a state in animal feed.
"What happens to road-kill deer? It goes straight to a rendering plant, then it gets fed back to deer, as well as cattle and other livestock," he said.
He said that human Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is so poorly understood that no one knows the true origin of so-called "sporadic" cases.
The Kentucky researchers, headed by microbiologist Glenn C. Telling, reported in Science that they had successfully infected laboratory mice with CWD taken from the muscle tissue of infected deer.
They did this by grinding up muscle tissue from deer and injecting it directly into the brains of the mice that had been genetically engineered to have deer prions rather than normal mouse prions. That made them more susceptible to a disease caused by a diseased deer prion.
In the only known case in which a CWD prion was injected into mice engineered to have human prions, there was no evidence of transmission, said Dr. Ermias Belay, a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
"After two years, none of the mice developed CWD," he said. In that experiment, the infected prions came from elk, not deer, he noted.
The time between a person's exposure to an aberrant prion and the first sign of symptoms is often more than a decade.
Therefore, CDC is working with state health officials in Colorado and Wyoming to study the extent of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease among persons who have been issued hunting licenses for years.
this is good news, actually.
deer populations need to be significantly reduced across much of the eastern United States, and especially in lyme hyperendemic areas such as the upper midwest and northeast seaboard.
although chronic lyme/ post lyme syndrome / neuropsychiatric lyme, which effect tens of thousands of people in these areas should be enough to ensure the eradication of deer, something like this just adds to the spectre of the deer as a monstrous threat to public health.
Posts: 523 | From Stillwater,OK,USA | Registered: Sep 2004
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Carol in PA
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 5338
posted
Chronic wasting disease was found in deer in New York State last spring.
Unfortunately, it was discovered AFTER the deer in question had been butchered and served at a banquet.
Carol
Posts: 6956 | From Lancaster, PA | Registered: Feb 2004
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NP40
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6711
posted
Here in northern WI. deer hunting is a religion. Believe me, CWD is a big, big deal up here. I know many who have quit eating venison because of it.
Posts: 1632 | From Northern Wisconsin | Registered: Jan 2005
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Loribelle
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 6293
posted
We are hunters here. We eat a lot of venison. This topic definately concerns me...
I will still eat deer meat, cooked - but NEVER will I eat deer jerky again.
Posts: 1149 | From southeast iowa | Registered: Sep 2004
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I will still eat deer meat, cooked - but NEVER will I eat deer jerky again.
You're absolutely right! I won't either. I LOVE venison, but don't have as much access to it anymore since we moved from Texas where my husband used to hunt on his parent's land.
His brother makes deer jerky every chance he gets. I will no longer eat it. I worry also about the Lyme and co-infections it could carry. Is that a concern??
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96239 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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lymeloco
Unregistered
posted
I don't know a lot about deer hunting, but I do know if there wasn't any hunting, they would die of hunger because of the population. There's a main road not too far from me, and three deer got hit by cars.
When I was a kid, my girlfriends brother would come back from hunting with the dead deer on top of his car. It bothered me. I have trouble killing bugs, except for ticks.
Ya gotta eat, and if I think too much about it, I'm not sure if I could eat ANY meat. So I'll stop here, and let you hunters enjoy!
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map1131
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2022
posted
I've been ticked off about this very subject for the last week. After our local paper did this piece about chronic wasting, I thought so what.
The other day someone in our city wrote this long editorial about the paper not giving more focus to this terrible situation that could be effecting our wonderful deer population in our state.
It fired me up. I wanted to do my own editorial about "who cares about the damn deer, what about the people of KY that are ill from a disease that our deer population spread around". I didn't do the rebuttal because I thought I didn't need to stress over this. They are so proud that our deer population is growing by leaps and bounds. Grrrrr!
Thanks for giving me a chance to vent over this. I feel better.
Pam
-------------------- "Never, never, never, never, never give up" Winston Churchill Posts: 6495 | From Louisville, Ky | Registered: Jan 2002
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