CWD To Eat Or Not To Eat

[Hudsy]

I’d never really given much thought to using a processor. Makes all the sense in the world though. All it would take is one positive deer to infect all of them.


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[z987k]

I was looking how it is transmitted in deer. They can get it from urine, semen, touching noses, saliva and blood. If CWD was spread this way in people with a 5 year or longer incubation I believe it would kill millions. If you had surgery, all the instruments would infect every other patient after you, blood donations, sex. it would take years before anyone knew it was happening. There was a case recently where a patient with CJD (a prion disease) had surgery and the instruments were cleaned and not disposed of. The next person who had surgery with those instruments contracted the disease. Mad cow was different from CWD. They ground up dead infected cows and fed them to healthy cows to save money or people may have never gotten it to begin with. It's the same way with the disease Kuru. A tribe in New Guinea decided eating a piece of your dead loved one's brain was a good way to stay close to them. The disease spread through the entire tribe. I can't remember the name, but there was a really good documentary about prion disease and how cannibalism spread it.

You can disinfect things from prions, it just takes a lot of heat. There's are procedures currently for it, you can look them up on the CDC and WHO website. It's NaOH and an autoclave. There hasn't been a contamination like you speak of since the 70s.

It's not through touch though. It's clearly through bodily fluids.

The reason I don't think it'd spread that terribly is because CJD and Kuru don't spread and kill us all. We also don't urinate on grass and then other people eat it. For sure some people would die, it would be less than the flu kills every year. I still wouldn't take the chance as it sits now.

 

[Yoder]

You can disinfect things from prions, it just takes a lot of heat. There's are procedures currently for it, you can look them up on the CDC and WHO website. It's NaOH and an autoclave. There hasn't been a contamination like you speak of since the 70s.

It's not through touch though. It's clearly through bodily fluids.

The reason I don't think it'd spread that terribly is because CJD and Kuru don't spread and kill us all. We also don't urinate on grass and then other people eat it. For sure some people would die, it would be less than the flu kills every year. I still wouldn't take the chance as it sits now.

I take my deer to a local deli to have sausage and kielbasa made. I would imagine that they use the same equipment for deer and all the other meats they make. I'm sure they don't put their grinder in a kiln at 900 degrees for a couple hrs to disinfect it. I'll bet they serve a couple thousand people a week. Even if it was transmitted similar to HIV, nobody would know they were infected for years. Every sexual partner, child born, blood donation. How many people could that spread to in 5 years? Looking at it that way, I just don't care that much. I'm pretty confident I would be dead anyway. Their cheddar peppercorn Kielbasa is delicious.

 

[Boarmaster]

Pass the gravy…

 

[Fordguy]

Once again...
If the NIH says that bleach is an effective surface disinfectant for CWD, I'm inclined to believe them. No need to go the high temp route on your knives or grinders.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/315...y, we,and infected brain homogenate solutions.
"In the current study, we confirm that bleach is an effective disinfectant for CWD prions and establish minimum times and bleach concentrations to eliminate prion seeding activity from stainless steel and infected brain homogenate solutions. We found that a five-minute treatment with a 40% dilution of household bleach was effective at inactivating CWD seeding activity from stainless-steel wires and CWD-infected brain homogenates. However, bleach was not able to inactivate CWD seeding activity from solid tissues in our studies."

So in essence, clean your tools and soak them in a 40% bleach solution for 5 minutes and you're all set. Soaking CWD infected tissue in the same bleach solution is ineffective as a disinfectant because the solution does not penetrate the tissue well enough in the time provided.

 

[rharbaugh]

A little information may be helpful for others amd make this a more informative thread.
Which state?
Who performed the test?
What was the approximate turn around time?

In iowa I have requested testing and been turned down as the state only performs it for certain counties. It'd be interesting to learn more about your process.


Your last sentence answered the question. If it's been around all along we have all certainly eaten it.

I would not consume a deer had it tested positive. For what it's worth.

You can submit your own samples to the lab at Iowa State for $25. I’ve sent samples in the last two years and got results back in around ten days.

CWD Submission Form

vdl.iastate.edu

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[TSAMP]

You can submit your own samples to the lab at Iowa State for $25. I’ve sent samples in the last two years and got results back in around ten days.

CWD Submission Form

vdl.iastate.edu

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Hey thanks for the info

 

[Bigsky108]

There aren't any known cases of cwd infected deer harming people who eat it. But yeah, I'll pass on that haha.

 

[z987k]

Once again...
If the NIH says that bleach is an effective surface disinfectant for CWD, I'm inclined to believe them. No need to go the high temp route on your knives or grinders.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31584997/#:~:text=In the current study, we,and infected brain homogenate solutions.
"In the current study, we confirm that bleach is an effective disinfectant for CWD prions and establish minimum times and bleach concentrations to eliminate prion seeding activity from stainless steel and infected brain homogenate solutions. We found that a five-minute treatment with a 40% dilution of household bleach was effective at inactivating CWD seeding activity from stainless-steel wires and CWD-infected brain homogenates. However, bleach was not able to inactivate CWD seeding activity from solid tissues in our studies."

So in essence, clean your tools and soak them in a 40% bleach solution for 5 minutes and you're all set. Soaking CWD infected tissue in the same bleach solution is ineffective as a disinfectant because the solution does not penetrate the tissue well enough in the time provided.

I'm not sure there are many people cleaning their stainless with bleach since bleach pits stainless.

 

[Nosferatu]

Eat it. Follow the science!

 

[Jimss]

I live a few miles from the first place in the US where CWD was discovered in wild mule deer in 1981. Prions have been in the soil and deer in our area for 41+ years. I’m sure many CWD deer and elk in our area have been consumed the past 40 years. No humans in our area have been sick or died from CWD. Is it worth testing and not eating CWD positive animals…it’s totally up to you!

By the way, our deer, elk, and predators (that eat CWD meat and infected tissue) and have been around CWD for years and years are thriving!

 

[Mad_Martin]

This is a great discussion

 

[Fordguy]

I'm not sure there are many people cleaning their stainless with bleach since bleach pits stainless.

If memory serves, a 40% solution for 5 minutes is what was recommended. I've used bleach on my own stainless more times than I can count, but it was diluted and I didn't measure the bleach and water in the mix. My steel looks the same as it always has. The only thing that has really made one of my stainless knives look ugly was carrying it during a 6 hour surf fishing/wading trip in the Gulf. I thought the belt sheath was high enough to stay dry... Apparently not.

 

[Str8shooter]

The comment about predators is interesting, even in the early stages of infection, mule deer with CWD on the northern CO front range were preferentially preyed upon by mountain lions. Mtn lion populations are doing just fine in that part of the world and it doesnt appear to jump to feline or canine predators. Regarding humans there are differing lines of evidence, in cell cultures, CWD prions do not appear to be able to infect human cells/tissues suggesting a probable species barrier, but in human related mammals (squirrels and macaques) some which were fed spinal/brain tissue did eventually exhibit CWD/CJ-like neurodegenegerative disease though I dont think these studies have been replicated. But then again there are an estimated 7-15 thousand CWD probable deer consumed annually in the US with no measurable increase in prion brain disease in humans. It appears the risk isnt zero but is quite low.

 

[Rockatansky]

I was looking how it is transmitted in deer. They can get it from urine, semen, touching noses, saliva and blood. If CWD was spread this way in people with a 5 year or longer incubation I believe it would kill millions. If you had surgery, all the instruments would infect every other patient after you, blood donations, sex. it would take years before anyone knew it was happening. There was a case recently where a patient with CJD (a prion disease) had surgery and the instruments were cleaned and not disposed of. The next person who had surgery with those instruments contracted the disease. Mad cow was different from CWD. They ground up dead infected cows and fed them to healthy cows to save money or people may have never gotten it to begin with. It's the same way with the disease Kuru. A tribe in New Guinea decided eating a piece of your dead loved one's brain was a good way to stay close to them. The disease spread through the entire tribe. I can't remember the name, but there was a really good documentary about prion disease and how cannibalism spread it.

Household Bleach Inactivates Chronic Wasting Disease Prions

Strategy Appears Feasible for Decontaminating Hunting, Meat Processing Equipment.

www.nih.gov

 

[Fordguy]

Agreed on low probability, but with continued exposure/opportunities/chances, someone will most likely, eventually win the jackpot. Who wants to be the first?

A mutation in the prion or an individual who is genetically predisposed could increase susceptibility, and given enough chances, either one is as likely as the other.

 

[Rich M]

I would not eat it. That's just me.

Accidentally eating a diseased deer is one thing but I'm not into deliberately exposing myself to stuff like that. All you have to do is be sensitive to the "bug" and you could have life-long issues. No thanks.

 

[Short Track]

You don't even get your own meat back, so you never know

 

[Fordguy]

Lol. Plenty of processors guarantee that you get your own back. This doesn't mean that your venison doesn't go through the "communal grinder". A friend of mine is a processor who makes that guarantee, and if you want to hang out and watch when he and or his staff process your animal, he's happy to let you. This guy also uses a bleach solution to surface disinfect his gear between each animal (don't know about the grinder but I doubt it).

 

[hunt1up]

We have CWD in our local counties here in Illinois. We're required to check our firearm season deer in person and they ask if they can sample. Generally everything gets sampled except for bucks that will be shoulder mounted since they cut the neck. For archery season they have drop boxes where you can throw heads to have them checked.

I've never had a positive gun deer and I haven't had any archery ones checked yet. If I ended up with a positive result I wouldn't eat it nor would I feed it to my family.