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Author Topic: CWD Transmission to Humans  (Read 3153 times)

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Online Steve-o

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Not good...

Study: Hunters Die After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison

A recent study in the journal Neurology found two hunters may have contracted the human form of Chronic Wasting Disease after eating CWD-infected deer meat


Online mike89

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a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work!!

Online LPS

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I've been worried about that. Just like bird flu is now getting to cattle. 

Offline Sharon

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Thanks for sharing this Steve-o, I'm going to post it over on IDO as well.  :sad:

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Offline Leech~~

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Not good...

Study: Hunters Die After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison

A recent study in the journal Neurology found two hunters may have contracted the human form of Chronic Wasting Disease after eating CWD-infected deer meat


THIS! "two hunters may-have contracted"  Sorry PETA and Vegans.  It's going to have to take a lot more then "May have's"  to stop me from eating nummy venny!  :bambi: :deer:  :fudd:   :coffee:   
Cooking over a open fire is all fun and games until someone losses a wiener!

Online Pulleye16

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Looks like they already pulled the story...guessing not a lot of likes from the hunting community.

Here's the medical abstract which started all this...

https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000204407

It's all 100% speculation with no conclusive data. I would not be worried about it at all. It's an abstract only and if people got this entuned with abstract research, we'd all be wearing bubbles and tin foil hats.
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Online Dotch

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*cough* climate change *cough*  :coffee:
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Online Steve-o

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... I guess.   :confused:

Online mike89

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interesting they pulled the story, unless it was rehashing the old news
« Last Edit: April 04/17/24, 02:51:38 PM by mike89 »
a bad day of fishing is still better than a good day at work!!

Offline Jerkbiat

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Just like how they say there is a possibility of humans getting mad cow disease. Been talking about that for 25 years. In the end maybe there is a possibility of both getting transfered to humans. Still not going to stop me from eating either one. Would I eat the meat if I know the animal was infected. Probably not.
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Online LPS

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Saw the ag show before the news in the morning.  The dairy farmer that is one that had bird flu in his cattle said they take them offline and don't send their milk for human consumption.  They all don't have it just a few of them. That made me feel better.  I hope they are all as responsible.

Offline Jerkbiat

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Saw the ag show before the news in the morning.  The dairy farmer that is one that had bird flu in his cattle said they take them offline and don't send their milk for human consumption.  They all don't have it just a few of them. That made me feel better.  I hope they are all as responsible.
Ya, they have been saying that on the local news and ag reports in the morning.
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Online Dotch

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Just like how they say there is a possibility of humans getting mad cow disease. Been talking about that for 25 years. In the end maybe there is a possibility of both getting transfered to humans. Still not going to stop me from eating either one. Would I eat the meat if I know the animal was infected. Probably not.

We've been dealing with scrapie in sheep for a few centuries. It's caused by a prion, same kind of causal agent as BSE (mad cow) and CWD in deer. Fortunately, genetic resistance was identified to scrapie in sheep at codon 171. After that discovery, the disease has become almost unheard of at least in purebred sheep. Almost everyone bought rams that were homozygous resistant. The scrapie ID program instituted by USDA tracks all animals that are sold into the food chain over a year old. We tag everything shortly after birth with a scrapie tag that has our state flock ID# listed on it. Sometimes in the case of a cull ewe or ram they'll shuck a tag over the course of their existence. Before they're loaded onto the trailer for market, we have to put another scrapie ID tag in their ear. If there is a slaughter animal over one year old found to be infected, the flock is quarantined and I believe now, they'll test the animals in the flock for resistance. If they're found to be susceptible, even though they're not infected, the animal(s) will be destroyed. I haven't heard of anyone having an issue for 15 - 20 years. Between the use of resistant genetics and the eradication program, it may be eliminated altogether. 

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/livestock-poultry-disease/sheep-goat/scrapie 
« Last Edit: April 04/18/24, 10:59:36 AM by Dotch »
Time itself is bought and sold, the spreading fear of growing old contains a thousand foolish games that we play. (Neil Young)

Offline HD

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Viral Articles Claim Two ‘Hunters Died After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison.’ Here’s What Really Happened
There is no evidence that chronic wasting disease has jumped to humans

by Katie Hill

The hunting community is experiencing whiplash after several articles appeared on mainstream news sites this week announcing that two hunters have died after eating venison from deer with chronic wasting disease. Wildlife experts say there is no evidence to support these claims.
Viral news website The Daily Mail published a story on Thursday titled “Two hunters ‘become first Americans to die from ZOMBIE DEER disease’ after eating infected venison.” The coverage is based on a research abstract published in Neurology on April 9 titled “Two Hunters from the Same Lodge Afflicted with Sporadic CJD: Is Chronic Wasting Disease to Blame?” The Mail story also appears to draw on the article “Study: Hunters Die After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison” published by Field & Stream Wednesday. (The F&S article has since been removed and replaced with more skeptical coverage of the Neurology abstract; a syndicated version of the original story remained on Yahoo! News at press time.) Now false reports of CWD infecting humans are spreading concerns and misinformation on hunting forums and social media.

“This is not a study and this is not a scientific paper,” veteran deer biologist and wildlife science coordinator for the Arizona Game and Fish Department Jim Heffelfinger wrote in an Instagram post Thursday. “The whole thing is only 344 words and is simply a mention about two hunters that died of [Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease] and both of them ate deer from the same deer population. There is no evidence of CWD infecting hunters.”

The authors — three of whom are doctors of neurology and one an MD candidate at the University of Texas San Antonio Long School of Medicine — attempt to connect two men who died from sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in 2022 to a population of CWD-infected deer the men supposedly hunted and ate. CJD is a prion disease that affects humans and behaves similarly to CWD and other transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, like mad cow disease in cows and scrapie in sheep. The research abstract says the men both died from sporadic CJD, which is the most common version of the disease; it’s thought to occur randomly and mostly impacts people older than 60. (There are three kinds of CJD: sporadic, variant, and genetic. Variant CJD can come from contamination in surgical settings or eating beef from cows with mad cow disease, according to the Mayo Clinic. Genetic CJD is caused by an inherited predisposition.)
“It’s unfortunate that this sketchy report has caused the alarm and confusion that it has,” National Deer Association’s director of communications Lindsay Thomas, Jr. tells Outdoor Life. The NDA published a response to the abstract on Thursday. “There are no details, no evidence, or facts presented, so there’s not much to go on. But the bottom line is, nothing has changed. We still don’t have evidence of transmission of CWD from deer to people. We didn’t before, and this doesn’t change that. Nothing changes about the advice for people regarding CWD and their health, either. If you hunt in a CWD zone, get your deer tested and wait for the results before you eat the venison.”

In an email to Outdoor Life, a representative of Neurology described its article as “a scientific abstract presented at the 2024 American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting and reprinted in Neurology.” The research abstract does not mention where the men hunted or whether the deer they consumed venison from was ever tested for CWD.

“After speaking with [one of the authors] Dr. Sarah Horn, she informed us that the information is not from a research study, it was a poster presentation of a case report presented at the AAN annual meeting,” UT Health San Antonio public and media relations specialist Eileen Teves tells Outdoor Life in an email statement. “The conclusion from that presentation was there remain no proven cases of transmission to date.”

Factual Problems with the Latest ‘Zombie Deer Disease’ News
The Neurology abstract centers on “a 72-year-old man with a history of consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population” and his friend, who also ate venison from the same population and had recently died from CJD. The first man passed away a month after developing symptoms of CJD. A post-mortem confirmed CJD was the cause of death. The Neurology abstract does acknowledge the limitations of its attempt to link CWD and CJD: “Although causation remains unproven, this cluster emphasizes the need for further investigation into the potential risks of consuming CWD-infected deer and its implications for public health.”
“There are clusters of CJD throughout the country — some in CWD areas and some outside CWD areas,” writes Heffelfinger. “With the spread of CWD nationwide it is not very noteworthy that [two] CJD victims in the same rural area may have both eaten venison. We have to be vigilant about the possible jump of a Prion disease from deer to hunter, but this note appears to me to be a very careless and childish attempt at making a splash in the media.”

The abstract does not include proof that the venison the men ate actually came from an infected deer. In fact, CWD prevalence is quite low, so eating venison from a deer herd known to contain CWD doesn’t even mean you might be eating venison from a CWD-infected deer. Hunters harvest uninfected deer from CWD host herds every season. The only way to know for sure is to test your deer for CWD.

“Most of the deer populations across the country where we have found CWD, prevalence rates are very low, in the single digits in most cases,” Thomas says. “Missouri has been fighting CWD for 12 years. They have CWD in 33 different zones. All of those zones are under three percent prevalence. Seventy-five percent of them are under one percent prevalence. You can hunt, harvest, and eat a lot of deer before you encounter one that has CWD.”

While the Daily Mail article opens with a bullet point reading “A study suggests that two men in Wyoming died from chronic wasting disease,” nowhere else in the article does the author make any mention of the state of Wyoming. Nothing in the research abstract mentions Wyoming hunters, either.  One photo in the Mail is captioned “Because CWD is so contagious, when one deer is confirmed to have died from it, an entire herd is infected.” This is categorically false, as Thomas points out.
Misinformation about CWD is all too familiar to the deer biologists, wildlife disease pathologists, and hunters who are informed about the issue. (Mainstream media’s continued use of the misnomer “zombie deer disease” is a major culprit.) But the implications of CWD transmission to humans are far too great to be treated so casually by both the research and media communities, Thomas says.

“That just makes this report seem all the more shaky, and thin, and casually irresponsible. This question of CWD in human health is so important. It would have such an impact on deer hunting and conservation and wildlife in North America, that it must be treated extremely carefully and cautiously and with an abundance of evidence and investigation. And it does not appear to me from this paper that that’s what occurred here. Were these neurologists strictly looking at this from a human dimension? They seem unaware of the implications of what they’re saying for deer hunting and wildlife conservation. This is just me speculating, but they don’t seem to be aware of the earthquake they have just caused in the hunting community.”
Mama always said, If you ain't got noth'in nice to say, don't say noth'in at all!

Online LPS

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Online Pulleye16

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Yeah, as I posted above, abstract research is pretty basic. Working with, and being involved in NIH (National Institute of Health) research, you take these types of paper with a grain of salt.

This paper will sit in the same pile as the Dr who claimed vaccines cause autistic kids.

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Online LPS

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It is good for us to be aware but at the same time keep things in perspective. No I won't eat a deer with CWD and I won't eat or drink milk from any sick cow. 

Offline glenn57

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It is good for us to be aware but at the same time keep things in perspective. No I won't eat a deer with CWD and I won't eat or drink milk from any sick cow.
i agree LPS, but little different between a wild deer and milk from a cow. that milk get tested and pasturizes wild venision doesnt get tested.  thing is  at this point its only affected the brain, limp nodes and spinal cord.

what i find odd is what about wolves, or the black bear???????if its so easily past around??
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Offline Jerkbiat

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It is good for us to be aware but at the same time keep things in perspective. No I won't eat a deer with CWD and I won't eat or drink milk from any sick cow.
Well gee Barry. Where is your sense if adventure??? 😂😂 I would have to agree with you.
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Online LPS

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Online Steve-o

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Not that the CDC has any credibility remaining with me after covid, but...

CDC: Deer meat didn't cause hunters' deaths; concerns about chronic wasting disease remain

While some past studies have suggested chronic wasting disease (CWD), or "zombie deer disease," may "pose a risk to people," the CDC says two hunters did not die from eating contaminated venison.

Online Steve-o

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This is as gooda place as any to post this...

The link to this PDF is from the U of M studying CWD.  It shows when and where CWD first appeared in the state.  It is out of date as it only goes back to 2020 and doesn't identify recent positive tests from 661, 684, or 679.

UofM_CWD.pdf

I'll be curious to see how all the testing comes out this year.  I saw this article published in 2021.  In 2016 CWD was detected in a deer farm in 604.  There was one detection from a wild doe in 2019, and another wild deer positive in 2021, which triggered the designation for 604 thru the 2024 season.  I haven't seen how many positive test since then.  Thankfully things aren't as bad as Wisconsin yet.

MN – Positive test on 1 Brainerd Lakes area deer extends CWD management to 2024

Still, I wish MN would do an interactive map like WI, where you can see exactly where by range and township and now many positive test were found.

WI CWD Interactive Map



Offline Leech~~

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This is as gooda place as any to post this...

The link to this PDF is from the U of M studying CWD.  It shows when and where CWD first appeared in the state.  It is out of date as it only goes back to 2020 and doesn't identify recent positive tests from 661, 684, or 679.

UofM_CWD.pdf

I'll be curious to see how all the testing comes out this year.  I saw this article published in 2021.  In 2016 CWD was detected in a deer farm in 604.  There was one detection from a wild doe in 2019, and another wild deer positive in 2021, which triggered the designation for 604 thru the 2024 season.  I haven't seen how many positive test since then.  Thankfully things aren't as bad as Wisconsin yet.

MN – Positive test on 1 Brainerd Lakes area deer extends CWD management to 2024

Still, I wish MN would do an interactive map like WI, where you can see exactly where by range and township and now many positive test were found.

WI CWD Interactive Map
Not really good with %'s anyone when to compare 15,000/2 to dying from a Lighting strike?   :scratch:

Just hope Bigfoot doesn't get it!!  :undecided:  :sad:  :bonk:  :rotflmao:

"With nearly 15,000 wild deer in the area tested since 2017 and only two positives found, the DNR is confident CWD is not prevalent or widespread in this area’s wild deer population"   :doah:

« Last Edit: November 11/11/24, 07:18:25 PM by Leech~~ »
Cooking over a open fire is all fun and games until someone losses a wiener!

Offline dew2

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the link could have led to this if it was followed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Tf9ui3UPvA
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