Study: Chronic wasting disease in deer muscle, not just brain

[Washington Hunter]

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- The leg muscles of deer infected with chronic wasting disease contain the infectious proteins that cause the fatal brain disease, new research shows.

Chronic wasting disease is in the same family of brain-destroying illnesses as mad cow disease.

There is no evidence that people have caught chronic wasting disease from infected deer or elk. But University of Kentucky researchers, writing in Friday's edition of the journal Science, concluded that hunters might be exposed to these infectious proteins, called prions, by handling a sick deer's flesh.

Researchers have found prions in the muscle of other species with variations of these "transmissible spongiform encephalopathies," or TSEs. But the most highly infectious tissue, in deer or any other species with a TSE, is the brain and spinal cord; muscle contains far less.

Already, hunters in areas where chronic wasting disease has been found are urged to have the heads of their kills tested for the ailment.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[FLIPPER]

It has been known for some time that mice infected with prion-based diseases have those prions throughout their body, including muscle tissue. I don't think finding it in the muscle tissue of deer is any great news. To date, no one has caught CJDv (the human form) from eating an infected deer, only from eating cows infected with MCD (the cattle form) and then only rarely. It is estimated that tens of millions of people in Europe ate infected beef, yet only about 250-260 people got sick from eating it.

 

[Elkmtb]

SO if any of you guys draw premium tags this year, I'll take them off your hands and test the proverbial waters for you. You don't want to take too many risk you know.