CWD and eating venison

[yimbow]

BVas, I just noticed your question. Unfortunately, cooking does not “kill” the CWD prion. I use the quotation marks because the prion isn’t even alive like a bacteria or virus. It’s a misfolded protein that can transfer from one deer to another. Don’t ask me how that works because I don’t know. It takes total incineration at something like 1000 degrees to destroy it. I like my venison a little less well done. It’s another one of the unusual and difficult things about CWD. Again, no easy answers.

[RJonesRCRV]

Obviously there are a lot of unknowns with CWD.  50 years from now when the solution is found, we will look back and say, "We should/ should not have done such and such, while this other solution helped slow the spread"; hindsight is 20/20, after all. 

At the moment, we dont know what will or will not work, so any possible method to delay the spread and possible advancement of CWD is better than no action at all.  Some may turn out to be misguided in the end, or maybe the most drastic option will turn out to be the best solution. 

[Pine]

http://cwd-info.org/faq/

[monterey]

As far as crossing species lines go, Colorado has detected CWD  moose. Our moose population was established in the 1980's.  It could have arrived with the transplants but it seems more likely they were infected cross species.

Pronghorn seem to be unaffected.  There is a lot of intermingling of cattle and deer on public land and ranchers put out salt blocks which are shared with deer but there are no known cases of transmission from deer to cows.

Colorado is still funding CWD research.

[Iowa Tom L.]

For those with some interest in test results, it is also important to remember that the current testing is not a food safety test. 

The results of the current tests are "detected" and "not detected."  "Not detected" doesn't mean that a deer is not infected with CWD, just that no CWD prions were detected by the lab analysis.  The disease has to progress to a certain point before it can be detected (in addition to any incubation period).

On the positive side, the currently used tissue analyses are more sensitive than the tests of a decade ago.  Ten years ago most tests were based on looking at slides of stained, fixed tissue (the CWD prions would fluoresce).  Now most testing is molecular-based; so progress is being made in some areas at least.

[Don Stokes]

Mississippi had the first positive test a couple of years ago in the southern part of the state, but in October a young buck tested positive in the county next to mine. The first detection resulted in a large zone being established from which no deer parts can be removed or imported unless they have been completely processed, and the importation ban is statewide. The state hasn't yet established the zone for the second deer, but it's almost certain to include my property. I had not heard about this "wholesale slaughter" in other states, and I understand the rationale (thanks for your input, Jim) but I have serious doubts as to whether it will stop the spread. We can only hope. It's almost impossible to "wipe out" a deer population by regular hunting methods, but it can be effectively done by using dogs to find them in daytime, and headlighting at night. I sincerely hope it doesn't come to that, but if it has to be done, let's hope it works! Re transmissions to humans, there was a woman in north MS who died from what was diagnosed as mad cow disease, but some people are convinced it was CWD, because she had not traveled past Illinois, where she did go into a CWD zone.

[Jhawk]

For those that enjoy podcasts, Randy Newberg's Hunt Talk Radio had a very informative episode on CWD recently.  It was the September the 21st episode and his guests were Dr Kelly Straka and Dr Krysten Shuler.  Both of these women are hunters and scientists studying CWD. 

[K. Mogensen]

I'll second the Joe Rogan Podcast referenced earlier in this thread. It is excellent and contains a lot of information.

The Meat Eater podcast with Steve Rinella also has an episode on CWD with the same biologist I believe, and it was also excellent.

Norway is experimenting with the eradication of a CWD positive reindeer herd. If I remember right, they are culling the infected herd and monitoring the area for a few years (3?) to ensure that no other deer enter the area. I think the results of this trial will have some pretty big implications on how CWD is dealt with in the future.

From what I recall, like creutzfeldt jakob disease, CWD has an incubation period where it can be undetectable even though it is present within the deer. Humans can have CJD for 40 or 50 years before they start to have symptoms. To me, this means that even though a deer looks healthy, if CWD has been found in your area, it's a roll of the dice.

Also, I believe that there were cases of CJD in the UK that could possibly be linked to the mad cow outbreak a few years ago. All of these are types of spongiform encephalopathy so they do the same thing to the brain. To me, this means that CWD 'could' at some point be picked up by humans, but from what I've heard from biologists it's unlikely.

They've begun testing for CWD in the unit that I hunt, but it hasn't been detected. However, it's been detected in the next adjacent county in Wyoming. I tend to think it's not already in my unit, it will be within the next decade or two unless they can come up with something to stop it. When that day comes, I will check my deer at check stations if they are open, but will likely continue to eat them as long as they looked healthy when I shot them.

In my opinion, just being alive in this 21st century is far more hazardous than anything that a deer could do to me. I'm sure that if I don't die in a car wreck tomorrow, global warming or lung cancer will get me sooner or later.

[Overspined]

Eradication is the only recommendation I’ve seen, and nothing says it will be effective long term. If it’s in the soil, it’s in the saliva, then it’s in human food when crops are harvested and processed. There’s been no human cases since discovery, and in MI my 2 areas are now CWD zones, so kill them all is the mantra by the state. It isn’t even transferring to cows. Kenny, I sent the same question to the state of MI about all this and they have a whole lot of zero answers. Their regulations this year are based on a combination of emotions and science. They admit that. And so nothing makes any sense. Wisconsin posted an article about CWD after years of dealing with it and say their efforts have had minimal impact. Im thinking it’s here to stay, and at this point with no human contraction I’m not going to worry about it.