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Prion Disease Found
Lurking In Deer Muscle

By Paul Meyer
shamireaders@yahoogroups.com
1-27-6
 
Note - As I have been saying for many years, prions do not now nor have they ever restricted themselves to 'brain and spinal column' tissues in either cows or deer or any other species infected (including humans). This story below confirming prions in the muscle tissue (meat) of deer comes as absolutely no surprise to the informed, and if it does not put an end to most deer hunting/eating, nothing probably will. (Prions in infected cattle were found in the 'muscle tissue' of cows years ago.) Unfortunately, many hunters and their families will go on to pay a terrible and tragic price for their 'sport' which is now officially tainted by this 'official' news. This article, of course, toes the obligatory and asinine government lie that 'no one knows if CWD can jump to humans' - which is beyond stupid and intended purely to protect the hunting and firearms industries and state and local tourism. Prions are spread through ALL bodily fluids in the deer/elk/cattle populations. The most 'rigid' warning to US deer hunters to date suggested that it 'might not be a good idea' to shoot and eat deer which are seen to be stumbling around or acting 'sick.' Of course, this warning is utterly laughable in the light of reality which is that the disease has a lengthy asymptomatic period which might last for years...during which the animal is infected and infectious. Furthermore, this article incorrectly states that mad deer have been found in '13 states' to date. In reality, CWD/mad deer have now been found in close to 40 different states. Bon appetite. -- JR
 
 
Prion Disease Found Lurking In Deer Muscle
 
By Debora MacKenzie
NewScientist.com news service
1-28-6
 
The infectious prions that cause Chronic Wasting Disease, an infection similar to BSE that afflicts North American deer and elk have been found in the parts of the animals that people eat. No one knows if CWD can jump to humans, but if it does hunters in affected areas might be at risk.
 
CWD was first diagnosed as a spongiform encephalopathy in captive deer and elk in Colorado in the 1970s, and in wild deer and elk in the region in the 1980s. But in the 1990s it spread widely within the elk farming industry, jumped to wild deer, and now affects two provinces of Canada and 13 US states.
 
Like the related sheep disease scrapie ­ though unlike BSE ­ CWD spreads from animal to animal, says Glenn Telling of the University of Kentucky at Lexington, US. Deer housed with infected animals, or fed infected brain experimentally, contract the disease.
 
Because of this there are fears that the CWD prion might be distributed widely in the deer's tissues ­ as scrapie is in sheep. Efforts to find the infectious prion in the muscle of infected animals, by seeing whether antibodies to the prion could find any and bind on, have previously failed.
 
But Telling's lab has now shown that diseased prions can reside in muscle of deer infected with CWD, by using transgenic mice.
 
Transgenic mice
 
The team replaced the gene for the normal mouse version of the prion protein with the normal gene from deer, so the mice made the normal, healthy deer protein. They then injected the mouse brains with tissue from infected deer. Twelve to 18 months later, the mice developed encephalopathy.
 
Tissues from both the infected deers' brains and thigh muscle caused disease. Muscle took slightly longer to cause disease than brain tissue, showing it had slightly less prion.
 
"We don't know that it is transmitted in the wild by animals eating muscle from infected animals," cautions Telling. "We now have to see where else the prion might be," including saliva and even excrement, using more transgenic mice.
 
Brain warnings
 
"Because we tested deer that were already ill," he told New Scientist, "we don't know what the distribution of prion is in animals that are still incubating the disease." Hunters have been warned by wildlife agencies not to kill and eat obviously ill animals, but an animal not yet showing signs of the disease might still carry the abnormal prion, albeit less of it.
 
It is also unknown whether people can catch encephalopathy by eating CWD-infected meat, as they can from eating BSE-tainted meat. Anecdotal reports that hunters develop the human prion disease CJD in unusual numbers have never been confirmed. State officials have issued warnings to hunters not to eat brain or spinal cord ­ the tissues most affected.
 
"If I were a hunter I would be cautious about eating deer in areas affected," says Telling. But he notes that not much testing of wildlife has been done, and it is not clear how prevalent the infection is.
 
Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1122864)
 

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