Thoughts on my own CWD situation

[cnelk]

it's funny CWD was first found in a government facility with captive deer…

I'm far more worried about EHD than CWD.

I can see those CSU deer pens from my house. Theres a hiking trail along the foothills that goes right by the pens.
Elk and deer live there

BTW - If they quit testing for CWD, it would go away

 

[mxgsfmdpx]

Eat the meat.
We are all waiting for someone to be the first one to get CWD

Yep. Folks have been eating CWD positive meat for close to 50 years now.

I can understand some folks being hesitant when it comes to their kids. But then they feed them meat from the grocery store full of other garbage ‍

 

[bowhuntercoop]

Never tested, never will. I eat everything I kill. Whitetails, mule deer, elk.

 

[dieselchessy]

Meat eater did a podcast on cwd recently. Like other such conversations they talk of CWD effects on deer and possible effects on humans, but leave out the conversation of transmission paths, and preventing such transmission paths.
We are left with lots of speculation on meat mixing at butchers, spread from handling, what deactivates prions, ect…

One thing that sticks out to me is that they seem to detect CWD any time they start testing for CWD anywhere they test.
Have they done significant testing of isolated populations to see what they find? Like testing sitka blacktail on an island in SE Alaska or Kodiak, or maybe caribou on Adak island, or elk on Etolin island, (both planted populations), ect…

I wonder what would happen if hunters did a blind test of scientists by submitting samples from those isolated places, but not disclosing the harvest location?

Another thing that sticks out to me. The tests dont indicate an infection free animal. They indicate no detection in the sample tested.

The dog test seemed interesting, but the article didnt describe how infected the CWD positive elk was, or other details of the other fecal samples used for testing. I suppose its possible the dogs were 100% correct and the humans were 80% wrong.

 

[Soj51hopeful]

No. Not at all. Unless people are eating that person.

Last I checked cannibalism is rather rare.

That’s not how cwd is spread. The deer aren’t eating each other.

 

[jmez]

EHD is a viral disease transmitted by insects. You aren't going to stop it.

 

[Will_m]

How? Unless you have no idea what a prion is?

I don’t!

 

[WyoBC_99]

I would contact the local bio or wildlife office. They should be able to use the obex at the base of the brainstem for testing - it's just not standard practice.

 

[92xj]

No. Not at all. Unless people are eating that person.

Last I checked cannibalism is rather rare.

Deer don’t eat other deer.
And according to all the CWD pros, bait sites are the places deer infect each other. So, a buffet should be the place people infect each other the most.

 

[z987k]

That’s not how cwd is spread. The deer aren’t eating each other.

Deer don’t eat other deer.
And according to all the CWD pros, bait sites are the places deer infect each other. So, a buffet should be the place people infect each other the most.

I'm sorry, are the people on the airplane drinking the urine of the infected man? Licking the toilet on the airplane? Doing a blood transfusion from him mid flight?
I'm not even sure if CJD has every been spread that way, and I don't think there's ever been a case of human to human transmission via anything but blood, surgical instruments or eating the nervous tissue of another human. Because it's rather rare for us to do the things that spread this between each other.

There's a reason no one is concerned about the CJD in Papua spreading.

 

[92xj]

I'm sorry, are the people on the airplane drinking the urine of the infected man? Licking the toilet on the airplane? Doing a blood transfusion from him mid flight?
I'm not even sure if CJD has every been spread that way, and I don't think there's ever been a case of human to human transmission via anything but blood, surgical instruments or eating the nervous tissue of another human. Because it's rather rare for us to do the things that spread this between each other.

There's a reason no one is concerned about the CJD in Papua spreading.

You never know. There are some weirdos out there.


Deer spread CWD by mouth/nose juices onto feed that other deer eat, correct?
Once man gets its, will it not spread mouth to mouth or has our research determined that won’t happen?

 

[z987k]

You never know. There are some weirdos out there.


Deer spread CWD by mouth/nose juices onto feed that other deer eat, correct?
Once man gets its, will it not spread mouth to mouth or has our research determined that won’t happen?

It's through direct contact and ingestion of bodily fluids. Urine, feces, etc.

According to the papers on the topic I just looked up, the only way vCJD, which is mad cow, has ever been spread from human to human has been through blood transfusions. The way that CJD, like the one that is prevalent in Paupa spreads is through eating of the nervous system tissue of the dead, infected human. Though one would assume a blood transfusion would do it there to, not that anyone's doing that.
There probably should be a pathway for the same urine or fecal transmission for human to human, but there are no documented cases of that happening with any forms of CJD. Loved ones living in the same house with infected family members, etc has never been an issue. We don't commonly intentionally come into contact with those fluids. I think I'd pass on someone pissing on a bowl of cheerios and eating it.

 

[Gbrecka]

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.

That’s the thing, I’m in a heavy cwd area, so we test and keep negative deer, but I know when I take trim into get sticks made, it’s going in the community pile with untested positive deer.

 

[Gbrecka]

Makes you wonder how many people that take their deer to a processor are unknowingly eating CWD infected deer.

Most or all of them.

 

[Gbrecka]

Doesn't really matter if they do. It's very unlikely that the cleaning processors do would remove prions from their equipment.

Correct, it’s unrealistic to think you can get a negative animal tested than take it to a processor and not cross contaminate.

 

[North of 60]

Another thing that sticks out to me. The tests dont indicate an infection free animal. They indicate no detection in the sample tested.

This is an important point.

 

[Laramie]

CWD is super duper scary... human contraction is immenent. You guys concerned should probably stop hunting.

 

[loganwayne]

Have you hunted the year in previous years? If so you probably ate a deer that would have tested positive. We have hunted an area for 7 years eating every deer before CWD became a thing in our state and our hunting area was right in the middle of the cwd zone. Still hunt there and don't test. Figured if we been eating it nothing has changed

 

[highcountrymuley]

Wow some incredible leaps of "reasoning" here by a couple knuckleheads... It seems very true that many thousands of people have most probably eaten muscle from positive/ infected deer and have not contracted cwd - which would present as CJD in humans. Of the two individuals that MAY HAVE been infected I wonder if they regularly ate brains or bone-in roasts (neck or roasts including spine/vertebrae/spinal cord tissue)? It seems like their habits for eating these parts of their deer might be known by relatives or aquaintences..

But to OP's original question: ask if that brain tissue can be tested. BUT even if your deer comes back negative for cwd, how comfortable are u in trusting the processed meat ? As in being mixed with other (untested unknown cwd status) deer? I never use meat processors but for those that do - wouldn't it almost GUARANTEE that your meat is now tainted with cwd by cross contamination from surfaces and tools in the butchering process?

While this is a gross train of thought to follow - it almost calms the mind to know that so many people have eaten cwd positive deer (because the meat processors are mixing positive cwd with negative cwd deer to ALL customers= cwd positive meat from every processor) and only 2 folks are thought (?) to maybe been infected across the human/deer species barrier.

Keeping this train of reasoning in mind, you can probably eat it and be fine. But you will think of it everytime you cook up a piece of it.