I'm in a somewhat medical field, get emails about new articles/research weekly. This popped up in my email last week. Its not a causative link, but does raise my concern level some.
Possible CWD/CJD link
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Omega
Well-Known Member
Many questions here; how long were they and the herd exposed to CWD, how did they process their deer, did they only eat the muscle (deboned) or did they do bone-in processing. Any organs eaten, any other possible shared exposure like sheep, beef?
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I have a quite a bit of familiarity with CJD because of my field.
Simplified, a prion is just a misfolded protein that causes other proteins around it to misfold too. It causes a cascade effect that is irreversible with current medical tech.
From a pathological standpoint, CWD and CJD/Mad Cow Disease are the same disease, but when it occurs in humans it is called CJD. The only way to tell the difference is to isolate the individual prion that caused the disease which is very difficult. It has also historically been really difficult to test for in living patients too.
The concern here is that CJD is pretty rare (350 cases in the US per year), so seeing 2 cases occur very close together COULD indicate a common factor.
Definitely something to look into very carefully!
Simplified, a prion is just a misfolded protein that causes other proteins around it to misfold too. It causes a cascade effect that is irreversible with current medical tech.
From a pathological standpoint, CWD and CJD/Mad Cow Disease are the same disease, but when it occurs in humans it is called CJD. The only way to tell the difference is to isolate the individual prion that caused the disease which is very difficult. It has also historically been really difficult to test for in living patients too.
The concern here is that CJD is pretty rare (350 cases in the US per year), so seeing 2 cases occur very close together COULD indicate a common factor.
Definitely something to look into very carefully!
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Agreed. This study is not proof of anything, but with the proximity of the two cases and the statistics of CJD, there could be something to it.
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You are 100% correct, and I appreciate that the article didn't try to draw conclusions. It did exactly what it was supposed to do which is just to report the cases. Somewhere between 5-15% of CJD cases are thought to be inherited.
This is an very informative article:
Possibility of wildlife-to-human crossover heightens concern about chronic wasting disease • Idaho Capital Sun
Animal disease scientists are alarmed about the spread of chronic wasting disease in deer. Could it crossover to hunters or other humans?
idahocapitalsun.com
Bottom line, we need rapid testing as soon as possible.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Good warning about potential transmission, but until they isolate and code the prion in the infected people, we won't know. When humans are infected with Mad Cow Disease (MCD), the prion is different than the natural form of human CJD. For that reason, it is termed CJDv, where the lowercase "v" is for "variant." Until they can show these two people have a variant version of CJD it could just be an incredibly rare coincidence (CJD occurs naturally in 1 in 1,000,000 people).
Just popped up in my news feed
www.yahoo.com
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
fairchaser
Well-Known Member
This would be incredibly bad news for deer hunters if it's proven to be related. Only a small percentage of people who consumed mad cows developed CJD but it was enough to create a problem.
Let's just hope and pray these two were unlucky coincidences.
Let's just hope and pray these two were unlucky coincidences.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Yes it would. And you are correct about very low transmission rate of MCD. Best estimates are, 38 million people in Europe ate MCD infected meat. But only 206 got CJDv. But still a risk and a disaster for those who became infected.
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Who funded the study?
Omega
Well-Known Member
I recall an article that said there may have been a proclivity in those that were affected. Which may account for the low number of those that actually contracted CJDv.
fairchaser
Well-Known Member
The odds of contracting CJD from an infected deer are incredibly low. There are so many other ways to die. More hunters have died from falling out of a tree or from dragging a deer out of the woods. Not to mention hitting a deer on the road. Yet we continue to hunt, climb trees and drive to the woods.
Because I hunt in a highly infectious area where more than half the deer have CWD, I haven't even killed a negative deer in several seasons, I've eliminated venison from my diet altogether. Many of the hunters I hunt with have done the same. It's just easier to donate the deer to HFTH and move on. Fortunately I've reached the age and place in my deer hunting career where it's not that big a deal. But, I hate we have lost this tradition for my grandsons. My sons don't hunt deer anymore somewhat because of CWD. I really hope something can be found to combat this disease.
Because I hunt in a highly infectious area where more than half the deer have CWD, I haven't even killed a negative deer in several seasons, I've eliminated venison from my diet altogether. Many of the hunters I hunt with have done the same. It's just easier to donate the deer to HFTH and move on. Fortunately I've reached the age and place in my deer hunting career where it's not that big a deal. But, I hate we have lost this tradition for my grandsons. My sons don't hunt deer anymore somewhat because of CWD. I really hope something can be found to combat this disease.
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megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
Was just an observational case report, not a study.
It isn't designed to 'prove' anything. Just a possible link between CWD in deer and humans who died from the human version of cwd.
Doesn't change anything for me. I still would never knowingly consume meat from a cwd positive animal. I would never feed a cervid to my kids from a cwd endemic area without having it tested first.
Otherwise, I follow the same procedures I have since CWD began to spread from out west throughout states east of the MS river... only process clean muscle free from contamination of spinal fluids, ensure major lymph glands are removed from the muscle before grinding, etc.
tn24
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CDC: Deer meat didn't cause hunters' deaths; concerns about chronic wasting disease remain
There have been no cases of chronic wasting disease in people to date, the CDC says. But it is still investigating the potential risks.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.CDC: Deer meat didn't cause hunters' deaths; concerns about chronic wasting disease remain
There have been no cases of chronic wasting disease in people to date, the CDC says. But it is still investigating the potential risks.
