Thoughts on my own CWD situation

[grfox92]

I found 1 study where a 50% mixture of 6% sodium hyperclorite for 1 minute was effective, but there's an ANSI standard for prion sterilization, and bleach isn't in there.

Yea I dont know. Im just telling you what I was told. 40% solution submerged for 5 minutes deactivated prions. That's what they told me. I'd assume they know?

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[grfox92]

CWD prions confirmed in raw, cooked elk meat and water used for boiling, but risk to people unclear

www.cidrap.umn.edu

I also wonder if this is an exception not the rule. I was always told a Lymphnode was needed because its not found in muscle tissue. Otherwise why do we need to perform surgery to remove lumphnodes if we could just test the meat.

Was it backstraps that were contaminated with spinal fluid? An animal that was visibly sick and in the end stages of life? Im not asking you these questions, just questions that I feel need answers.

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[Speaks]

Looks like Prions from deer have recently infected Humans. I was surprised too...

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

The article starts with "there is no conclusive evidence for cross species contamination"

Though I dont disagree that it might indicate reason for caution.

 

[Speaks]

I also wonder if this is an exception not the rule. I was always told a Lymphnode was needed because its not found in muscle tissue. Otherwise why do we need to perform surgery to remove lumphnodes if we could just test the meat.

Was it backstraps that were contaminated with spinal fluid? An animal that was visibly sick and in the end stages of life? Im not asking you these questions, just questions that I feel need answers.

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Yea I would lean toward contamination during butchering vs it being in the meat.

 

[Trumpkin The Dwarf]

Looks like Prions from deer have recently infected Humans. I was surprised too...

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

Please don't make massive leaps beyond what the paper says... it suggests a possibility of CWD presenting as CJD (mad cow) because two hunters happened to present with mad cow disease after time at some lodge. Call me crazy but two cases of mad cow disease from people at the same lodge would be way more suggestive of contaminated beef than CWD, personally. It's certainly not enough data to write a strong research paper.

 

[MuleyFever]

I also wonder if this is an exception not the rule. I was always told a Lymphnode was needed because its not found in muscle tissue. Otherwise why do we need to perform surgery to remove lumphnodes if we could just test the meat.

Was it backstraps that were contaminated with spinal fluid? An animal that was visibly sick and in the end stages of life? Im not asking you these questions, just questions that I feel need answers.

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Just to be clear I posted that just in response to your statement that it cant be detected in meat. Sounds like they had some specialized equipment to do that. I am also under the impression that the prion is not generally found in the meat itself but contaminated through the butchering process.

 

[rileybassman]

Looking for more info but just saw this today. Lots of "mays" and speculation etc. but it's something to not take lightly.

https://www.mdlinx.com/article/two-men-die-after-eating-deer-meat-infected-with-prion-disease/7tm5rY6ntGOlOL8VvcYIBS

2 hunters may have died of prion disease from eating contaminated deer meat, researchers say

A new report calls for further study into a possible link between chronic wasting disease in deer and a rare and deadly brain disease in humans.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[NMJM]

Its fascinating how people perceive risk. CWD may have big implications for deer and hunting and should be studied more. However hundreds of thousands of people possibly even a million have been exposed to CWD and there has not been a single case in humans. Yet here we are very concerned and wringing our hands over it. There are so many other risks we assume every single day without even a thought to them. Whether it's big things like our national debt or what social media is doing to us or other health related risks such as heart disease, cancer, stroke or diabetes and most of us don't think about these nearly as much as we do about CWD.

 

[KsRancher]

Bleach won't cut it.

Papers written on the topic require 1N Sodium Hydroxide and a very specific autoclave cycle at higher than normal and much longer than normal temperature and pressures.

I don't know any butcher shops with an autoclave.

I posted an article on here several years ago. It was a research test and it showed that bleach did work. I cant remember all of the specifics. But I think something like a 50%, bleach for 5 min made the prions incapable of multiplying. I will try and dig it up.

 

[Ryan Avery]

These threads remind me of Covid.

Why even shoot the deer if it could have CWD… that's what they want you to ask yourself….


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[grfox92]

These threads remind me of Covid.

Why even shoot the deer if it could have CWD… that's what they want you to ask yourself….


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Because I like big bucks and I can not lie?

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[jmez]

Its fascinating how people perceive risk. CWD may have big implications for deer and hunting and should be studied more. However hundreds of thousands of people possibly even a million have been exposed to CWD and there has not been a single case in humans. Yet here we are very concerned and wringing our hands over it. There are so many other risks we assume every single day without even a thought to them. Whether it's big things like our national debt or what social media is doing to us or other health related risks such as heart disease, cancer, stroke or diabetes and most of us don't think about these nearly as much as we do about CWD.

Fear sells.

 

[Pacific_Fork]

Eat the deer. The fear of being the first one out of millions to get CWD is dumb.

Plus there’s these likely facts about a CWD positive bucks that the fearful people always forget. You processed the deer with your bare hands and no protective face/eye wear. If there were prions in this buck it already likely got into your blood, mouth, eyes, etc.

Prions mostly are found in brain and spinal fluids.

 

[MuleyFever]

Eat the deer. The fear of being the first one out of millions to get CWD is dumb.

Plus there’s these likely facts about a CWD positive bucks that the fearful people always forget. You processed the deer with your bare hands and no protective face/eye wear. If there were prions in this buck it already likely got into your blood, mouth, eyes, etc.

Prions mostly are found in brain and spinal fluids.

This gets me too. If you're afraid of CWD then don't kill a deer and process it because if you get CWD on the meat you got it all over yourself and into your home.

 

[liv3mind]

The history of CWD and it's roots/handling over the years is fascinating, and raises a lot of questions surrounding it.

That being said, if you take a deer to a processor that has ever processed a "positive" case, you have already likely exposed yourself, as stated earlier in thread there is no way they are cleaning their entire shop between each animal to the required level. Also very few actually guarantee your specific meat back. Then throw in the fact that alot of these processors also do local raised animals that wind up in local shops and stores, well it doesn't take a leap to understand that WAY more people have likely eaten CWD venison or CWD exposed meat than can be comprehended.

It seems that unless you can process yourself fully at home, guarantee that you don't get dirty, can properly clean and disinfect everything involved, and store the meat until you get results, you really have no way to guarantee anything.

No way of knowing how this scales to large facilities as well, it's too much to worry about and too much to try to control, if it looks healthy I eat it, understanding that it may not be. I trust the probably not CWD more than I trust lab meat and meat fed and grown to scale.

 

[LandLakes]

I appreciate the input from everyone. I’m not concerned about transmission from handling the head or processing the meat, more so the ingestion of the meat given the proximity to a confirmed CWD case. Guess I’m just worrying myself with this hypothetical that my deer could be positive as well. I guess the area we were hunting in hadn’t had any confirmed cases till this year which I didn’t know about till after my buddy got his tested, so really wasn’t a “need” to be concerned. Will definitely be more cautious next year hunting in that area.

Lots of interesting tangents that came up and through I’d chip in my understanding of CWD and prions:

Prions aren’t alive like bacteria or viruses. They’re misfolded proteins, and they can stick to metal, plastic, soil and so on, which is why labs use strong bleach or NaOH when they are cleaning equipment that touched brain or spinal tissue from an infected animal. That part is true.

What they do not do is grow or multiply on tools or carcasses. If you cut through the brain or spine of a CWD-positive deer and then use the same knife on another one, you can physically move some prion material around, but it does not “infect” the second carcass because it is already dead. It is just trace contamination, not an actual transmission pathway like you see in live deer. Nothing happens to that second carcass because it is already dead and prions cannot infect, amplify, or replicate in dead tissue. It is just physical transfer, not biological infection. Think about prions like glitter. You cut through a bag of glitter, you get glitter on your knife and can move that glitter around between surfaces, but it doesn’t replicate. And still, you’d have to be actively cutting through spinal/brain tissue to actually pick up a significant load of prions. Whereas cutting through meat doesn’t always necessarily mean you’ll pick up any prions, and if you do, it would be a very very minimal load.

For humans, there are still no confirmed CWD cases despite a lot of hunters eating deer from CWD areas over the years. Lab work suggests humans have a strong species barrier, but agencies still recommend not eating meat from a known CWD-positive animal as a precaution.

So, prions are hard to destroy and can stick to surfaces, but they do not behave like bacteria, they do not spread in dead tissue, and the real issue is deer-to-deer or environmental transmission. The human risk picture has not shown any real-world infections even with long-term exposure. I get the risk of human transmission is apparently nearly impossible, but I would still be concerned about eating a confirmed positive CWD infected deer, but cross-contamination between surfaces isn’t something to be too concerned about.

 

[Smoke_Rutz]

Here to offer my 2 cents..

I’d keep on eating it.


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[LandLakes]

Because I like big bucks and I can not lie?

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Was a big buck for sure! Lmao

 

[ReaptheHeat]

Does the processor guarantee your own meat back? Including the meat in the sticks and sausage?

Man not even. If you take ANY animal to a processor it probably has the prions mixed in from other game. You need to bleach the crap out of everything to destroy it.

People have been eating CWD meat for decades. And even if you test it that doesn't guarantee your animal doesn't have the prions.

 

[MuleyFever]

This thread had me reading some on CWD and I thought this was pretty interesting.

Dogs were more than 80% accurate​

After 2 days of scent box testing the animals were field tested, and then were given various tests to sniff out CWD, all with more than 80% accuracy.

Study: Dogs can detect chronic wasting disease in white-tail deer

The dogs were able to identify infected deer through feces samples.

www.cidrap.umn.edu