Take a look at this site.

http://www.foodconsumer.org/777/8/Eating_wild_deer_unsafe.shtml

For me this is cause for concern, but not panick.

" Deer and elk that are infected with mad cow-like disease, known as chronic wasting disease (CWD), carry infectious agents called prions in their leg muscles, indicating that those handling and eating infected deer meat may contract the same disease, University of Kentucky researchers reported on Jan. 26 in the journal Science."

No proof yet that it's a problem with transmission to humans, but it could go that way.
Think of the ramifications if this happened with beef cattle?

I love the title of that article.

Is there a PETA connection here?

I would have to question this because of the methodology. Can someone expalin to me how injecting extracts from leg muscles directly into the bloodstream is the same as eating them? Is the assumption here that since the pirons survive cooking etc why bother with the intermediary step? It also seems to be a rather bizarre way to test transmisability, inject the infecting agent directly into the blood stream, does anyone realisticly expect any other outcome? Since the researchers seem to have no idea how the pirons got into the leg muscle tissue did anyone ask " Gee, is experimental error possible?"

I would not be surprised if there were a PETA connection here. Universities being the cespool of liberal extremism that they are why not just make stuff up if it suits your political agenda?

Before anyone panics, here's some more info. on the story.


Hunters shouldn't panic over CWD study, state says

By JEFF GEARINO
Southwest Wyoming bureau
GREEN RIVER -- A new study on chronic wasting disease shouldn't panic Wyoming hunters and others into not eating venison, Game and Fish Department officials said.

There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that hunters and others who consume venison containing the proteins that cause the deadly brain ailment chronic wasting disease will get the disease, according to Wyoming Game and Fish Department scientists.

A new report in Friday's issue of the journal Science said people who eat venison meat from CWD-infected deer could swallow small quantities of the disease-causing proteins, known as prions. The report was prepared by Colorado and Kentucky scientists who found "significant" amounts disease-causing prion proteins in the hamstring muscle of deer dying from chronic wasting disease, the Denver Post reported.

Wyoming officials said the risk of death to humans who eat such meat appear nonexistent.

"Nobody has ever died from CWD and people have been eating (deer meat that could contain prions) for 25 years," said Terry Kreeger, Supervisor of the Game and Fish Department's Veterinary Research Services.

"We find no evidence from the epidemiological perspective or any investigations that humans get this disease," he said in a phone interview. "There is some very good, very compelling research out there that says its very highly unlikely that humans can get this disease."

CWD is a transmissible disease found in some deer and a few elk that attacks the central nervous system of the animal, causing the infected animal to basically waste away. The disease is 100 percent fatal to animals that contract it and there is currently no known cure for the disease.

The disease was first detected in the Rocky Mountain region in 1967. It was found in Wyoming by the end of that decade and has been endemic in an approximately 12,000 square-mile area of southeastern Wyoming and northwestern Colorado for more than 30 years.

The movement of the disease in recent years to areas near Worland in the Big Horn Mountains and in the Sierra Madres marking the first discovery of CWD west of the Continental Divide, has prompted concerns that the disease could arrive at some of the 22 supplemental feedgrounds operated by Game and Fish in western Wyoming and at the National Elk Refuge in Jackson.

Kreeger called the new Science study "one more piece of the puzzle" in the CWD research effort.

Scientists still don't know whether the deer prions can sicken people, researcher Glenn Telling, a molecular biologist at the University of Kentucky and a co-author of the new study, told The Denver Post. The finding, he told the newspaper, "raises the stakes."

Previously, Kreeger said, researchers could only detect prions in the central nervous system of deer and elk and in organs such as spleen and lymph nodes.

"As the scientific process evolved, we realized that prions were probably being transported in the blood and if so, one's got to assume that there's some prions in the meat tissue," he said. "Now it does appear (the study shows) that prions are in the meat at some level."

Kreeger said the study's researchers basically took extracts of the CWD-infected deer meat and injected it into mice.

"With this model, this wasn't just a mouse, it was a mouse that was made basically into a very good miniature deer in regards to its susceptibility to CWD ... it was primed, if you will, for exposure to CWD prions regardless of the source," said Kreeger.

"But what the mouse wasn't was a miniature human ... they've done similar studies in the past with mice that were like little humans and mice that were like little elk," he said.

"They injected the CWD prions with the mouse elk and they all died and they injected CWD prions into the human mice and none of them died," Kreeger said.

"So basically the reality of this research, from a pure scientific perspective, is that if a deer eats the muscle of another CWD-infected deer, then that deer could get CWD," he said.

"But it's total speculation to move that to humans eating deer muscle. Any extrapolation to humans is totally speculative."

Kreeger noted that tens of millions of people at mad cow-infected beef in the 1990s and only 150 people actually contracted the disease.

"I think the public is smart enough to do that same kind of assessment (with CWD)," he said. "Some people are uncomfortable with the risk, so it really all comes down to an individual's risk assessment. For people who are risk tolerant and analyze all the information, this is probably no big deal."

Southwest Wyoming Bureau reporter Jeff Gearino can be reached at 307-875-5359 or at gearinotrib.com.

As a neurosurgeon, who has had to deal with prion disease in humans, I think the risk from CWD cervids (deer) is extremely low, but not zero.

Prion disease is fairly species specific. With that said, there are still a small number of trans-species infections, and the reasons are not understood.

If I shot a nice 10 point, walked up on it and suspected CWD I wouldn't even cut off the antlers. T

That would be one of the few times I'd just let the animal lie.

Garrett

I bowhunt elk every year in CO, in one of the many management units that has a history of CWD. I have been fortunate to take several elk, and my family and friends enjoyed eating all of them. Up until I read this thread, I always avoided touching or using my knives around brain tissue, lymph glands, and the spinal cord as I was told by the CO DOW that these parts/areas were to be avoided. While I will still hunt the same unit later this year, it will be interesting to see what additional evidence/scientific proof surfaces between now and Aug. As a side note, a friend I play golf with had a co-worker die a few months ago from a disease much like "mad cow" disease. He never hunted a day! Life remains interesting!

quote:

Originally posted by N. Garrett:

If I shot a nice 10 point, walked up on it and suspected CWD I wouldn't even cut off the antlers. T

That would be one of the few times I'd just let the animal lie.

Garrett

And what would make you suspect CWD?

LBGuy, Have you submited any of the tissue from the animals you've killed for testing? The DOW still offers testing of an animal killed in units that have had diagnosed cases of CWD in them, or are included in the "suspect" units around them. The cost was $15.00, and you just take the head to a DOW site, (and some vets do it to) they ask you some questions about the location where you killed it, they take the tissue, and you're on your way,
The test takes a week or so and if it tests positive, they'll call you, but I always call them just to see for myself, and I think it's worth it to give you a little more peace of mind.

Acouple companies are starting to make do-it-yourself test kits, but I think I'd just let the State do it.

I read pretty much the same article using the Journal Science for the details, and it was titled "CWD's risk to humans might be greater than thought, so I'm not sure about any PETA involvement. I just wonder how responsible it was to publish this study with only using the one method of testing.
Injecting directly into the blood without cooking the meat does not sound like a valid lifelike situation.

One thing this article and study will most likely do is, to make enough people frightened to drop the numbers of hunters that will even consider hunting in or near a unit in which CWD has been found.
The downside of that is, that most States that have CWD areas, are counting on hunters to reduce the population of the animals in those areas, specifically animals in a certain age range.

I'll sure still hunt elk back home in COLO., in the same unit we've been rifle hunting for elk, (and sometimes mulies), for 27 years. And there has been suspected cases of CWD there. I'll just take a little more care when dressing and proccessing the animal, and I will have the critter tested for CWD

quote:

Originally posted by N. Garrett:
As a neurosurgeon, who has had to deal with prion disease in humans, I think the risk from CWD cervids (deer) is extremely low, but not zero.

Prion disease is fairly species specific. With that said, there are still a small number of trans-species infections, and the reasons are not understood.

If I shot a nice 10 point, walked up on it and suspected CWD I wouldn't even cut off the antlers. T

That would be one of the few times I'd just let the animal lie.

Garrett

Why not get it tested before you decide to let an animal go to waste? Nothing says you have to eat a critter if it tests positive, but it's a lousy thing to do to just leave a deer to rot based on a "suspicion." If a deer has the classic symptoms of CWD, you should be able to notice them before you pull the trigger, which would save you the trouble anyway. Here in Wyoming, it's illegal to leave an animal to waste in the field, and rightly so. It disgusts me the number of animals that seem to turn up shot and abandoned every fall. I'm sure the shooters all have a great excuse as to why, but I think they're full of BS. If you're going to drop the hammer, be responsible and retrieve your game. If you think it's sick, get it tested before you eat it.