CDC (yeah, I know) summarized some recent research that has not been fully published yet showing that macaques were infected by eating both muscle meat and/or brain/spinal tissue (see below). They also highlighted a 2018 study that said the opposite. My own opinion is that until we know more, I am going to get my deer tested, and if they are positive, I am not going to eat them. Everybody else should make their own judgements about their personal risk tolerances.Gunny456 said:
I have read about some of those studies.........I understood that they injected the monkeys and rats with the actual infected tissue and that they fed the monkeys the same infected tissue......not just meat from the animal.
They have also been studying the effects of our stomach acids and the digestive system process to try and understand if it can in fact be contracted by eating "the infected tissue".
At a seminar I attended in MO the biologist also shared data on the injection of infected tissue into other Cervidaes (namely Fallow and Axis) and have not seen a transference of disease into those specie and are hoping that may show some clues on preventing it into other Cervidae.
You brought up some very valid points. I say if a person is very concerned about his meat to have the deer tested.
As the biologist in MO stated we have a lot to learn about it yet......just like covid.
From Transmission | Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) | Prion Disease | CDC:
The CWD prion has been shown to experimentally infect squirrel monkeys, and also laboratory mice that carry some human genes. An additional study begun in 2009 by Canadian and German scientists, which has not yet been published in the scientific literature, is evaluating whether CWD can be transmitted to macaquesa type of monkey that is genetically closer to people than any other animal that has been infected with CWD previously. On July 10, 2017, the scientists presented a summary of the study's progress (access the recorded presentationExternalexternal icon), in which they showed that CWD was transmitted to monkeys that were fed infected meat (muscle tissue) or brain tissue from CWD-infected deer and elk. Some of the meat came from asymptomatic deer that had CWD (i.e., deer that appeared healthy and had not begun to show signs of the illness yet). Meat from these asymptomatic deer was also able to infect the monkeys with CWD. CWD was also able to spread to macaques that had the infectious material placed directly into their brains.
This study showed different results than a previous study published in the Journal of Virologyexternal icon in 2018, which had not shown successful transmission of CWD to macaques. The reasons for the different experimental results are unknown. To date, there is no strong evidence for the occurrence of CWD in people, and it is not known if people can get infected with CWD prions. Nevertheless, these experimental studies raise the concern that CWD may pose a risk to people and suggest that it is important to prevent human exposures to CWD.