The article does NOT draw a firm conclusion or state a defined link between eating CWD venison and human disease .....describes two elder hunters who consumed venison often .....but for both to contract CJD and die is worth noting....and investigating.

Not fear mongering....just found it worth continued monitoring....as most of us aware/educated outdoors types have been for several years now.

Study: Hunters Die After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison (msn.com)

I wouldn't knowingly eat meat from a sickly animal.

Definitely something to be concerned about but this article seems like 100% fear mongering:

Quote:

---

The authors of the April 9 study are quick to point out that causation for the recent CJD cases in hunters remains unproven

---

They're also incredible vague about the "infected" venison:

Quote:

---

consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population

---

What does that mean? Consuming a confirmed CWD infected deer? Consuming a deer from a state with confirmed CWD cases? This seems intentionally vague.

This is a big concern of mine considering my family eats about 4-5lbs of venison a week, but I'm not sure this is confirmation of a novel case… I'm also not qualified enough to make that decision and I didn't stay at a holiday inn express last night.

AgResearch said:

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I wouldn't knowingly eat meat from a sickly animal.

---

100% this

ttha_aggie_09 said:

---

Definitely something to be concerned about but this article seems like 100% fear mongering:

Quote:

---

The authors of the April 9 study are quick to point out that causation for the recent CJD cases in hunters remains unproven

---

They're also incredible vague about the "infected" venison:

Quote:

---

consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population

---

What does that mean? Consuming a confirmed CWD infected deer? Consuming a deer from a state with confirmed CWD cases? This seems intentionally vague.

This is a big concern of mine considering my family eats about 4-5lbs of venison a week, but I'm not sure this is confirmation of a novel case… I'm also not qualified enough to make that decision and I didn't stay at a holiday inn express last night.

---

They have definitely seen CWD like prions show up in the brains of monkeys that are very closely related to humans that were fed infected meat. So I don't see why anybody would be surprised that it could happen in humans too. I don't usually do neck shots anyway, but brain and spinal fluid is particularly known for containing CWD. If I hunted in a known CWD area, I would not be doing neck shots and if I did, I would not each the neck meat from around the wound. I have MS, so I already have enough F'd up stuff going on in my brain, so I don't need to take chances with anything else.

Shouldn't they be able to determine if the prion is a CWD prion? I don't think the prion changes when jumping to a human. I admittedly have no idea, I just thought those things were nearly indestructible.

Not surprised if and when it happens, I'm just questioning if this is really the smoking gun

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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Not surprised if and when it happens, I'm just questioning if this is really the smoking gun

---

I think smoking gun is a bit strong without more info/biological evidence (ie ID of prions in the brain of the deceased as CWD or the human equivalent). One case could just be a flyer, 2 cases at same lodge is suspicious coincidence. If I were a member of that lodge, I would be talking to a neurologist about getting an MRI.

A quick google search shows that CWD has been around since 1967. Just playing devils advocate, but wouldn't you think that if it has been around for 50 years we would have figured out if it can be transferred to humans. There would almost certainly have been confirmed cases. Just something to think about.

bigF said:

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A quick google search shows that CWD has been around since 1967. Just playing devils advocate, but wouldn't you think that if it has been around for 50 years we would have figured out if it can be transferred to humans. There would almost certainly have been confirmed cases. Just something to think about.

---

Yeah, because it hasn't spread to 31 additional states and spread widely through the deer herds in many states in the time since 1967. It has become much more widespread in the last 20 years or so than it was in the first 30 or so after it became known.

I see what you are saying, but if I restated that to say, there have been no confirmed cases in the last 20 years it still sounds pretty much the same to me. I can't hop on board this CWD scare train.

bigF said:

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I see what you are saying, but if I restated that to say, there have been no confirmed cases in the last 20 years it still sounds pretty much the same to me. I can't hop on board this CWD scare train.

---

Given the difficulty in diagnosing CJD, it is very possible there have been others that we did not realize were related. Like I said, I don't think this is a smoking gun, but it is not nothing either. The argument from the Dr Deer aficionados has always been that "there is no evidence it can infect humans". Now there is possibly evidence that it has…the argument is now "well this is just one case…or maybe two." CWD can take years to manifest in deer and we have no idea how long it takes to manifest to kill a human. I don't see anything to panic about, but it is not something to be dismissive of either.

I feel like when this happens (not if), the general consensus is gonna be "well, duh!".

To me, this is like being surprised when smoking was "determined" to be bad for you. Didn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that inhaling smoke might not be healthy.

Quote:

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Now there is possibly evidence that it has…

---

Here is the title:
"Hunters Die After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison"

From the study:
"Two Hunters from the Same Lodge Afflicted with Sporadic CJD: Is Chronic Wasting Disease to Blame?"

From the body of the study:

Quote:

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In 2022, a 72-year-old man with a history of consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population presented with rapid-onset confusion and aggression. His friend, who had also eaten venison from the same deer population, recently died of CJD, raising concerns about a potential link between CWD and human prion disease.

---

Where do you see confirmation of consuming CWD infected deer? It makes no such claim in the study but conveniently titled the article to make it seem like it was confirmed.

Does none of that make you want to ask questions? Or are you just hell bent on believing all of this because "it was only a matter of time"?

Maybe I am taking crazy pills but I don't like taking things as fact when an article has a clickbait title, references a very vague and inconclusive study, and is on a topic that many, including the majority of hunters in this board, know is sensitive or controversial.

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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Quote:

---

Now there is possibly evidence that it has…

---

Here is the title:
"Hunters Die After Consuming CWD-Infected Venison"

From the study:
"Two Hunters from the Same Lodge Afflicted with Sporadic CJD: Is Chronic Wasting Disease to Blame?"

From the body of the study:

Quote:

---

In 2022, a 72-year-old man with a history of consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population presented with rapid-onset confusion and aggression. His friend, who had also eaten venison from the same deer population, recently died of CJD, raising concerns about a potential link between CWD and human prion disease.

---

Where do you see confirmation of consuming CWD infected deer? It makes no such claim in the study but conveniently titled the article to make it seem like it was confirmed.

Does none of that make you want to ask questions? Or are you just hell bent on believing all of this because "it was only a matter of time"?

Maybe I am taking crazy pills but I don't like taking things as fact when an article has a clickbait title, references a very vague and inconclusive study, and is on a topic that many, including the majority of hunters in this board, know is sensitive or controversial.

---

I bolded the key word of what you quoted from me.

possibly

adverb

1. perhaps (used to indicate doubt or hesitancy)

First of all, I'm not trying to be a dick about this - I am just questioning the article and study. Don't take this personally and get all bent out of shape.

Second, the reason why I included the titles of the article was because it boldly claimed "from consuming CWD venison" and yet nowhere is that claim verified. If you're going to say this is "possibly" the proof of CWD causing CJD/hopping over to humans, wouldn't confirmation of consuming CWD infected deer be the very first thing that would need to confirmed?

ttha_aggie_09 said:

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First of all, I'm not trying to be a dick about this - I am just questioning the article and study. Don't take this personally and get all bent out of shape.

Second, the reason why I included the titles of the article was because it boldly claimed "from consuming CWD venison" and yet nowhere is that claim verified. If you're going to say this is "possibly" the proof of CWD causing CJD/hopping over to humans, wouldn't confirmation of consuming CWD infected deer be the very first thing that would need to confirmed?

---

You are accusing me of "being so sure" and "taking things as fact" when I did absolutely nothing of the sort. I specifically cast doubt on whether it is proof of any connection or just coincidence. I think the article likely did a poor job summarizing the article and overstated the confidence of the study. Presumably or at least hopefully, there is more testing and study ongoing to establish whether there is an actual connection or not. The slow development of prion driven diseases is going to make direct attribution difficult in even the best clinical conditions.

I'd love to pretend to be concerned with this but the truth is I've eaten Taco Bell on my own free will within the past 6 months.

txags92 said:

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bigF said:

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A quick google search shows that CWD has been around since 1967. Just playing devils advocate, but wouldn't you think that if it has been around for 50 years we would have figured out if it can be transferred to humans. There would almost certainly have been confirmed cases. Just something to think about.

---

Yeah, because it hasn't spread to 31 additional states and spread widely through the deer herds in many states in the time since 1967. It has become much more widespread in the last 20 years or so than it was in the first 30 or so after it became known.

---

FIFY

Yeah, because it hasn't spread to 31 additional states and spread widely through the deer herds in many states in the time since 1967. It has become much more widespread in the last 20 years or so than it was in the first 30 or so after it became known. Primarily due to transporting pen raised deer long distances on trailers.

I am and was questioning your confidence, given the holes in the articles and study. That's not a personal attack on you but me trying to understand either what the heck I am missing or how did you arrive at your position?

You've since addressed and I appreciate the clarification

txags92 said:

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bigF said:

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I see what you are saying, but if I restated that to say, there have been no confirmed cases in the last 20 years it still sounds pretty much the same to me. I can't hop on board this CWD scare train.

---

Given the difficulty in diagnosing CJD, it is very possible there have been others that we did not realize were related. Like I said, I don't think this is a smoking gun, but it is not nothing either. The argument from the Dr Deer aficionados has always been that "there is no evidence it can infect humans". Now there is possibly evidence that it has…the argument is now "well this is just one case…or maybe two." CWD can take years to manifest in deer and we have no idea how long it takes to manifest to kill a human. I don't see anything to panic about, but it is not something to be dismissive of either.

---

Just to expound a little bit on this for clarity…Think for a minute about what it would take to "confirm" a case of CJD in a human came from CWD. Keep in mind that CWD can take many years to manifest in deer after exposure. So if the same may be true in humans, you may have somebody expose themselves by eating an infected animal and not show symptoms for several years. And it may take many months or even be post mortem before they are able to confirm that it is actually CJD that killed them. I saw in one article a description of a patient that took 22 months to die and wasn't confirmed with CJD until post mortem. By that time, any meat in their freezer that could have been tested for CWD is long gone. And testing of their brain tissue may depend on whether the family allows an autopsy. So the best you can likely hope for is something like a "hunter who ate meat from a known CWD area develops CJD". Having two from the same hunting lodge die in close timeframe is not proof of anything, but it is an unusual coincidence given the rarity of human CJD cases. Even if there is a direct connection out there, it may be beyond our capabilities to "confirm" anything. We may not get any confirmation in the future other than backwards looking correlation of unusual CJD clusters in CWD areas.

txags92 said:

---

ttha_aggie_09 said:

---

Definitely something to be concerned about but this article seems like 100% fear mongering:

Quote:

---

The authors of the April 9 study are quick to point out that causation for the recent CJD cases in hunters remains unproven

---

They're also incredible vague about the "infected" venison:

Quote:

---

consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population

---

What does that mean? Consuming a confirmed CWD infected deer? Consuming a deer from a state with confirmed CWD cases? This seems intentionally vague.

This is a big concern of mine considering my family eats about 4-5lbs of venison a week, but I'm not sure this is confirmation of a novel case… I'm also not qualified enough to make that decision and I didn't stay at a holiday inn express last night.

---

They have definitely seen CWD like prions show up in the brains of monkeys that are very closely related to humans that were fed infected meat. So I don't see why anybody would be surprised that it could happen in humans too. I don't usually do neck shots anyway, but brain and spinal fluid is particularly known for containing CWD. If I hunted in a known CWD area, I would not be doing neck shots and if I did, I would not each the neck meat from around the wound. I have MS, so I already have enough F'd up stuff going on in my brain, so I don't need to take chances with anything else.

---

That study was also heavily weighted to do everything possible for the monkeys to get it from my understanding.

Here is NIH response 2018

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-study-finds-no-chronic-wasting-disease-transmissibility-macaques


2 monkeys did contract cwd by eating meat in a canada study. Other 1 got it by eating brain tissue and 2 more by directly applied to the monkeys brain

However, with humans-
"Timothy Kurt did that research at the University of California, San Diego. Kurt looked at the role played by the 210 amino acids in the prion protein to figure out why CWD is transmitted to some species and not others. He found that when a species had a different amino acid in a key location, the diseased prion wouldn't fit neatly into the healthy prion, like a zipper with teeth that don't fit together. This, Kurt believes, is CWD's species barrier. The amino acid sequence differed between humans and deer at a key location. A different study showed that a macaque's amino acids matched the deer sequence in the same spot, but not the human one."

txags92 said:

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txags92 said:

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bigF said:

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I see what you are saying, but if I restated that to say, there have been no confirmed cases in the last 20 years it still sounds pretty much the same to me. I can't hop on board this CWD scare train.

---

Given the difficulty in diagnosing CJD, it is very possible there have been others that we did not realize were related. Like I said, I don't think this is a smoking gun, but it is not nothing either. The argument from the Dr Deer aficionados has always been that "there is no evidence it can infect humans". Now there is possibly evidence that it has…the argument is now "well this is just one case…or maybe two." CWD can take years to manifest in deer and we have no idea how long it takes to manifest to kill a human. I don't see anything to panic about, but it is not something to be dismissive of either.

---

Just to expound a little bit on this for clarity…Think for a minute about what it would take to "confirm" a case of CJD in a human came from CWD. Keep in mind that CWD can take many years to manifest in deer after exposure. So if the same may be true in humans, you may have somebody expose themselves by eating an infected animal and not show symptoms for several years. And it may take many months or even be post mortem before they are able to confirm that it is actually CJD that killed them. I saw in one article a description of a patient that took 22 months to die and wasn't confirmed with CJD until post mortem. By that time, any meat in their freezer that could have been tested for CWD is long gone. And testing of their brain tissue may depend on whether the family allows an autopsy. So the best you can likely hope for is something like a "hunter who ate meat from a known CWD area develops CJD". Having two from the same hunting lodge die in close timeframe is not proof of anything, but it is an unusual coincidence given the rarity of human CJD cases. Even if there is a direct connection out there, it may be beyond our capabilities to "confirm" anything. We may not get any confirmation in the future other than backwards looking correlation of unusual CJD clusters in CWD areas.

---

So colorado and wyoming should hsve a ton of CJD cases compared to US with your theory since been there since 67 at minimum . Shouldnt be hard to compare maps of cjd cases and cwd concentrated areas

montanagriz said:

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txags92 said:

---

txags92 said:

---

bigF said:

---

I see what you are saying, but if I restated that to say, there have been no confirmed cases in the last 20 years it still sounds pretty much the same to me. I can't hop on board this CWD scare train.

---

Given the difficulty in diagnosing CJD, it is very possible there have been others that we did not realize were related. Like I said, I don't think this is a smoking gun, but it is not nothing either. The argument from the Dr Deer aficionados has always been that "there is no evidence it can infect humans". Now there is possibly evidence that it has…the argument is now "well this is just one case…or maybe two." CWD can take years to manifest in deer and we have no idea how long it takes to manifest to kill a human. I don't see anything to panic about, but it is not something to be dismissive of either.

---

Just to expound a little bit on this for clarity…Think for a minute about what it would take to "confirm" a case of CJD in a human came from CWD. Keep in mind that CWD can take many years to manifest in deer after exposure. So if the same may be true in humans, you may have somebody expose themselves by eating an infected animal and not show symptoms for several years. And it may take many months or even be post mortem before they are able to confirm that it is actually CJD that killed them. I saw in one article a description of a patient that took 22 months to die and wasn't confirmed with CJD until post mortem. By that time, any meat in their freezer that could have been tested for CWD is long gone. And testing of their brain tissue may depend on whether the family allows an autopsy. So the best you can likely hope for is something like a "hunter who ate meat from a known CWD area develops CJD". Having two from the same hunting lodge die in close timeframe is not proof of anything, but it is an unusual coincidence given the rarity of human CJD cases. Even if there is a direct connection out there, it may be beyond our capabilities to "confirm" anything. We may not get any confirmation in the future other than backwards looking correlation of unusual CJD clusters in CWD areas.

---

So colorado and wyoming should hsve a ton of CJD cases compared to US with your theory since been there since 67 at minimum . Shouldnt be hard to compare maps of cjd cases and cwd concentrated areas

---

No. CWD was pretty rare in the deer and elk population for a long time. And still is to some degree in those areas relative to other areas like Wisconsin, probably due to lower herd densities. It obviously doesn't cross species easily, and is mostly carried in tissues that humans don't regularly eat. Plus people often hunt a significant distance from where they live, so there is not an easy way to correlate cases of CJD with locations that the patients may have hunted. CWD is rare, CJD is rare, so large scale correlations will be very difficult unless the case numbers increase over time and doctors treating CJD patients start gathering a lot more info about possible CWD exposure.

It's a matter of statistical probabilities. The more exposure the more times, in areas with the prion, the greater the odds over time. If the prion triggers a re-fold of a specific human protein and it gets into the central nervous system, the results are inevitable but whether a prion happens to be able to make that journey is a matter of cumulative probabilities, and probably pretty low.

The linked study:

Quote:

---

Design/Methods:
Not applicable.

---

It's been a long time since I took 3rd grade science, but I wouldn't have advanced to 4th grade science with a report like that.

ttha_aggie_09 said:

---

Definitely something to be concerned about but this article seems like 100% fear mongering:

Quote:

---

The authors of the April 9 study are quick to point out that causation for the recent CJD cases in hunters remains unproven

---

They're also incredible vague about the "infected" venison:

Quote:

---

consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population

---

What does that mean? Consuming a confirmed CWD infected deer? Consuming a deer from a state with confirmed CWD cases? This seems intentionally vague.

This is a big concern of mine considering my family eats about 4-5lbs of venison a week, but I'm not sure this is confirmation of a novel case… I'm also not qualified enough to make that decision and I didn't stay at a holiday inn express last night.

---

I would disagree that it's 100% fear mongering.

The first quote is just the authors being honest and cautious. They haven't done the kind of analysis that will give definitive proof. They may not be able to.

As for the second, I don't think it's intentionally vague. Unless the two guys who died were testing every deer they consumed for CWD and recording where it came from and when, you can't get very specific on if they were eating CWD infected deer and how much. What you could have some understanding of is where they lived and potentially hunted and if CWD infected deer had been found there. That's what I'm assuming is meant here. They had a high exposure risk because they were hunting in an area known to have CWD infected deer.

From what we can and do know, there's a strong likelihood that they got CJD from CWD infected deer, though it isn't proven beyond a doubt. That's not fear mongering. Unless someone can go back and test all of the deer they consumed or find another commonality between the two to assess, it's next to impossible to make that kind of irrefutable distinction. All we can do is look at the available facts and make some conclusions about what is most likely.

CJD is a prion disease that is quite literally 1 in a million. There's only 300-350 cases a year in the US, and to have two in the same area at the same time in people who knew each other would be an incredible statistical anomaly if they weren't related by a single source. While coincidences happen, even with that level of improbability, it is a safe assumption that both were exposed to prions from the same source. If they were regular hunters and consumed a lot of venison from an area known to have deer with CWD, it's also a safe assumption that that is the source unless and until some other possible source is found.

normaleagle05 said:

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The linked study:

Quote:

---

Design/Methods:
Not applicable.

---

It's been a long time since I took 3rd grade science, but I wouldn't have advanced to 4th grade science with a report like that.

---

All that means is that it was not a study they planned to do, so it wasn't double blind placebo controlled or some design like that. They didn't set out with a goal of finding two patients with CJD from the same hunting lodge in an infected area with a plan for how to study them when they found them. It was something they happened upon and decided to write an article about to report about it, so there was no "design".

They state that one of the deceased was 'confirmed' as having sCJDMM1. They don't state the methodology for how this was confirmed, which is something you'd state in the 'Methods' section of a scientific report.

That's lazy at best, and probably a good indicator that their motivations for this 'paper' are flawed. Get published, write news clickbait.

normaleagle05 said:

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They state that one of the deceased was 'confirmed' as having sCJDMM1. They don't state the methodology for how this was confirmed, which is something you'd state in the 'Methods' section of a scientific report.

That's lazy at best, and probably a good indicator that their motivations for this 'paper' are flawed. Get published, write news clickbait.

---

Some serious echo chamber going on in here.

If it was clickbait it wouldn't have included so many caveats.

Seems like it's worth reporting even if it's a rare or unrelated case.

People here just want to shout down anything regarding CWD for some bizarre reason.

Edit: just take the article for what it is. A possible link. No one here is claiming it's anything more than that.

normaleagle05 said:

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They state that one of the deceased was 'confirmed' as having sCJDMM1. They don't state the methodology for how this was confirmed, which is something you'd state in the 'Methods' section of a scientific report.

That's lazy at best, and probably a good indicator that their motivations for this 'paper' are flawed. Get published, write news clickbait.

---

Actually it isn't. You are looking at an Abstract for what amounts to an announcement of an interesting occurence with potential implications for further study, not the scientific report itself, and the "design/methods" section of the abstract is where they would normally tell you the methods they used to construct and implement the study. If they were trying to show that some new drug showed better results than an existing drug or something like that, the design and methods would tell you whether it was a blind or double blind study, whether placebos were involved, what measures they used to assess success, etc.

But they didn't do a "study" that was planned. They are reporting on some interesting clinical events. The method of diagnosis of CJD was not the topic of what the authors were reporting on. The meat of their report was that two cases of a VERY rare disease that has been theorized to possibly be linked to CWD exposure just happened to pop up in two patients close together in time that had both been hunting and presumably eating deer meat from a population known to be impacted by CWD.

The authors are not trying to say that the instances they are reporting on are proof of anything. They even end their title with a question mark to emphasize the uncertainty in their subject matter. I am sure if you want to pay for a subscription to Neurology, they probably tell you more than you ever want to know about how the testing to confirm CJD was performed, but when it comes to the "design/methods" section of their abstract, it was not germane to the central topic they were reporting on, so they didn't put anything there.

Ridiculous. If you're going to assert facts in a peer reviewed scientific publication the burden falls on you to support those facts with evidence. There is zero evidence that what is claimed even happened.

Who verified the cause of death? What methods did they use? What qualifications did they have to properly employ those methods?

Show me a lick of evidence that this guy didn't die of a heart attack. Or that he ever existed at all.

This isn't science. This is propaganda.

normaleagle05 said:

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Ridiculous. If you're going to assert facts in a peer reviewed scientific publication the burden falls on you to support those facts with evidence. There is zero evidence that what is claimed even happened.

Who verified the cause of death? What methods did they use? What qualifications did they have to properly employ those methods?

Show me a lick of evidence that this guy didn't die of a heart attack. Or that he ever existed at all.

This isn't science. This is propaganda.

---

Propaganda for… who??

What are you talking about?

Not everything is a conspiracy.

It's anti-hunting/meat eating propaganda.

Not everything in a peer reviewed journal is science.

normaleagle05 said:

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It's anti-hunting/meat eating propaganda.

Not everything in a peer reviewed journal is science.

---

You're living in fantasy land.

No liberals know CWD is. None. It's a hunter issue for obvious reasons.

Ask the UK if it's a valid issue to be concerned about.