Scary article

[Chrud]

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The muscles of deer affected by a mad cow-like disease carry the infectious prions that spread the illness, meaning that venison could potentially spread the agent to humans, researchers reported on Thursday.

They said leg muscle tissue taken from mule deer with chronic wasting disease (CWD) infected specially bred mice when they were injected with the tissue.

While stressing that was a long way from showing venison was infectious, researcher Glenn Telling of the University of Kentucky said the study showed it could be.

"If I were to eat venison I wouldn't feel comfortable eating venison from areas where chronic wasting disease is endemic," Telling said in a telephone interview.

Chronic wasting disease is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), one of a family of diseases that includes scrapie in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in people.

It has been found in deer and elk across the U.S. West and Midwest and in parts of Canada. No one quite understands how it spreads.

Like scrapie, BSE and the other diseases, it gradually destroys the brain and it is always fatal. It is caused by misshapen nervous system proteins called prions.

There is no evidence people can catch CWD. But after BSE swept British cattle herds in the 1980s, people began coming down with an odd version of CJD called vCJD, and it has been linked to eating infected beef.

In Britain, 153 people have died from probably or confirmed vCJD and six suspected vCJD patients are still alive.

Telling and colleagues used a well-established method to test the infectivity of venison, by breeding special mice that are susceptible to CWD, then injecting them with brains and muscle tissue from infected deer.

The mice became ill and the higher the dose, the worse their disease, they report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

"We don't know if people will develop a human prion disease as a result of exposure to CWD but we know people developed prion disease as result of exposure to BSE," Telling said.

"Obviously the most likely route of exposure would be via meat and that is why we addressed this."

Experts already advise people to take care when handling deer or elk that may have been infected with CWD. The muscle meat of cattle generally has not been found to carry prions but their brains and certain organs do.

"It is difficult to predict how prions will behave when they cross species barriers," Telling said.

[MUDRUNNER]

Re: Scary article

It still doesn't say much we didn't already know.I would have thought by now someone would have eaten an infected deer and died if it was contagious.

It also says the rats were bred spesifically to be succeptible to CWD.Does that mean a regular mouse would not be?

There are still a lot of unanswered questions out there on cwd.It's pretty nasty stuff.

[doughboy1956]

Re: Scary article

Still eat deer liver and they said we should not far back as the 60,s. If i stopped eating evrything they say not to and don,t to this and that. Might as well loke yourself in a time bubble. But CDW is nasty.

[rockefeller66]

Re: Scary article

that is bad news, I agree that by now you think someone would have eaten an infected deer?

[Ravin R10 man]

Re: Scary article

Been eatin venison all my life..aaannnndd iiitttt neevvvveerr eeffeectttedd mmmmeee yyyyyetetttttttt?????///

[Born2Hunt]

Re: Scary article

I know people that have eaten infected venison. It has not kil;led them yet!

[Bond]

Re: Scary article

[ QUOTE ]

I know people that have eaten infected venison. It has not kil;led them yet!

[/ QUOTE ]

Same here. These people I know sent in the deer head for testing. They started eating it before the test results came back. Found out it tested positive, and continued to eat it.

I bet a few of us on here have eaten it without even knowing it. It has been around forever and deer don't show symptoms until they've had it for a few years...