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Chronic Wasting Disease in game animals and possible risk to humans

dcll

Banned
I have heard about this awhile back but didn't realize how serious it is or the scope until I watched a Missing 411 video where he was covering that topic at the start of the video. This is pretty alarming, anyone here know about this?
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
Zombies bro, just a 0.000001% chance of a mutation away.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Could we perhaps add some more information to the OP.

What is this? Why is it impacting game animals? Why is there a possible link to humans?
 

Prison Mike

Banned
Star Trek No No No GIF by arielle-m
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
It is a prion disease like mad cow. Im not actually sure they have a confirmed case of a human getting it but I could be wrong.

Anyway, don't shoot and eat a sick looking game animal...which is always sound advice.
 
Don't eat game, specially deer.

I've been eating it since I was like 8. Your risk is extremely low.


So for those that don't know, CWD is a prion disease. Something weird happens with proteins and it ruins the creature's ability to digest. Humans and deer are such different species that the likelihood of transmission is extremely low. However, if you get it your body will start to slowly decay.


Cooking does nothing to eliminate the small risk that exists. Prion's need to be cooked to something like an internal temperature of 800 degrees for them to die, if you cooked meet to that point it would be aweful.


If you want to actually know something about it listen to this podcast, they had an expert on to talk about this.




CWD risk is overblown. It's extremely transmissible between various species of ruminants, it doesn't appear to be transmissible to humans.


 
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I've been eating it since I was like 8. Your risk is extremely low.


So for those that don't know, CWD is a prion disease. Something weird happens with proteins and it ruins the creature's ability to digest. Humans and deer are such different species that the likelihood of transmission is extremely low. However, if you get it your body will start to slowly decay. Very few humans have ever gotten it, and it's not clear how they did.


Cooking does nothing to eliminate the small risk that exists. Prion's need to be cooked to something like an internal temperature of 800 degrees for them to die, if you cooked meet to that point it would be aweful.


If you want to actually know something about it listen to this podcast, they had an expert on to talk about this.




CWD risk is overblown. It's extremely transmissible between various species of ruminants, it's not very transmissible between deer and humans. Lots of people eat deer meat that has CWD every year, virtually none of them end up with CWD.

The problem is what happens when deers get onto beef farms, shit on the grass, and cows eat it and get CWD themselves but are slaughtered before they start being obviously sick? Soon it's in the beef supply.
 
The problem is what happens when deers get onto beef farms, shit on the grass, and cows eat it and get CWD themselves but are slaughtered before they start being obviously sick? Soon it's in the beef supply.

Then ban high wire fencing operations where they grow deer and other ruminants like cattle. My understanding is that a lot of the spread of CWD is related to that specific type of operation.


Also cows already get their own version of CWD, and if not managed properly it will be in your food supply. It's called Mad Cow disease.
 
Then ban high wire fencing operations where they grow deer and other ruminants like cattle. My understanding is that a lot of the spread of CWD is related to that specific type of operation.


Also cows already get their own version of CWD, and if not managed properly it will be in your food supply. It's called Mad Cow disease.

I live out in the boonies and I see deer in cattle fields all the time. All it takes for exposure is a cow eating some grass that a deer defecated/urinated/vomited/etc. on.

Mad Cow is a different prion, IIRC.

Looking it up, it seems to be very difficult for cattle to get CWD from deer, so that's a benefit. Prions can't really "mutate" because they do not store information - they are proteins with a different conformation (i.e. a thermondynamically stable 3-D arrangement of the amino acid strand(s) that make up a protein) that catalyze isomeric proteins that are in a "normal" biologically useful conformation to reshape into the prion conformation. The new prions accumulate because they are not biologically active and are usually "sticky".
 
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truth777

Banned
It is a prion disease like mad cow. Im not actually sure they have a confirmed case of a human getting it but I could be wrong.

Anyway, don't shoot and eat a sick looking game animal...which is always sound advice.
We’ve had it in our area for years, but it’s nothing more than the common sense approach mentioned here.
 
I live out in the boonies and I see deer in cattle fields all the time. All it takes for exposure is a cow eating some grass that a deer defecated/urinated/vomited/etc. on.

Mad Cow is a different prion, IIRC.

Looking it up, it seems to be very difficult for cattle to get CWD from deer, so that's a benefit. Prions can't really "mutate" because they do not store information - they are proteins with a different conformation (i.e. a thermondynamically stable 3-D arrangement of the amino acid strand(s) that make up a protein) that catalyze isomeric proteins that are in a "normal" biologically useful conformation to reshape into the prion conformation. The new prions accumulate because they are not biologically active and are usually "sticky".
It may be a different prion broadly it's the same kind of thing. According to the CDC link I posted there has yet to be a confirmed case of transmission of CWD to humans.
 

QSD

Member
David Paulides and his Missing 411 shtick is a basic misunderstanding of statistics. I wouldn't trust him for his critical analysis. I'll admit I do find his case descriptions interesting though.
 

Croatoan

They/Them A-10 Warthog
I know a bit about this.

CWD is the deer version of Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Encephalitis). There is a human version as well called CJD (Scary shit). There is another human disease called vCJD that happens when a human eats a cow with Mad Cow Disease. Man has been eating deer for thousands and thousands of years and we have yet to record a single case of CWD becoming vCJD in humans. There have been two cases of vCJD "possibly" coming from a sick elk but scientists aren't sure that is where the kids got sick.

Some numbers off the top of my head:

There are 350 new cases of CJD (the human version) a year in the US (population 350million)

There have been less than 250 cases of vCJD EVER and most were in the United Kingdom (the US has only had 4 and they were all tied to eating beef in the UK or Middle East). vCJD is basically not happening now.

There have been two people that might have gotten vCJD from an Elk (canada I think).

Americans eat a shit ton of Deer and there have been 0 vCJD cases linked to it.


You are more likely to be killed by spear hurled by Elvis riding on a unicorn than to die from CWD from a deer. This thread is alarmist as shit.
 
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