Hunting of white tail deer is very popular where I am from. Everyone has family members who hunt and stock up on venison. It's very common for people to share their meat with friends and neighbors and cook venison around a camp fire. Many harvested deer have been tested and confirmed infected for at least a decade now. Most people do not get their deer tested. Certain WMU (wildlife management units) are mandated that all kills be tested. Also most people field dress their own deer which means lots of blood and fluids from the deer on their hands and clothes.
I have seen a CWD deer in the wild not far from my house. It was scrawny and shaking with the strangest look on its face [1] just walking down the middle of the road. Very abnormal behavior for a deer. It's just a matter of time before it jumps to humans.
Joe Rogan actually covered CWD on one of his podcasts [2] with a few biologists as guests. You can find videos [3] of CWD on YouTube.
Yeah, this is pretty terrifying. I remember reading that prions might also be communicable via optical equipment.
There's no cure for prions, and they all kill you in nasty, interesting ways. Most involve driving you slowly insane and causing your body or brain to decay. The best possible treatment is antibodies, which we don't really have yet.
I remember reading that a population of people on a pacific island had high incidence rates of kuru due to eating each other's brains after death. I also remember that after a few hundred years of doing so, some had developed a resistance.
Seeing as prions mis-fold other proteins, might something like Folding@Home be able to contribute here? I would appreciate some insight from a person with knowledge of this area.
Edit: Corrected pacific island disease from mad cow to kuru; thanks noir_lord
Want to get really terrified? Read about the chances of prions being passed between people. The first recognized prion-STD will come one day. It may already have happened. We don't test for these things. We could all be infected with hundreds of prions without knowing it. What pushes them into "disease" territory is negative symptoms.
But the upside is that prions are nothing new. Although we may not appreciate our defenses, the fact that we are all still alive is reason to believe we evolved some form of resistance to them.
What freaked me out was learning that it is extremely difficult to sterilize surgical equipment such that prions are removed. If you are operated on with surgical equipment that was previously used on a person infected with prions (I'm talking about human prions here and not deer prions), even if the equipment was thoroughly sterilized, the prions are almost certainly still there and can be transferred to you.
It reminds me of the recent discussions around eyes and prions:
"Infectious 'Prions' Found in the Eyes of Patients with Fatal Brain Disease"
"The results also raise concern about the potential for the disease to spread through routine eye exams or eye surgeries, during which equipment could become contaminated with prions, the researchers said."
hmm non-medical info here, but .. the washing action is important in cleaning, not just chemicals and heat.. many infections have to pass a certain critical volume to catch on.. no idea about prions specifically, but be careful about getting upset.. it is a problem itself
The hypothesis for many prion diseases is that of "seeding" whereby a small number (or maybe even a single) prion protein acts as a template to induce misfolding of other proteins with similar sequence but native folds [1,2]. This causes a chain reaction in the proliferation of the prion protein inside the cell, and then in other cells as prion proteins are transported/secreted to the surrounding tissue.
There is an advantage in thinking about prions, and proteins more generally, as crystals rather than biological systems. A vat of fluid can sit for decades without ever forming a crystal. But then the addition of a single seed can give rise to an infinitely large, growing, structure.
If you read the article, this disease, like it’s relative Mad Cow Disease, can probably infect humans, but is not likely to surface until many years after infection.
Actually the parent is correct. "That's not how it works". Specifically deer prions (but not other cervids like elk) don't seem to be transmissible to cows, both in the lab and in the wild, and not to mice or humans in the lab. It goes in both ways IIRC, cows nor mice can't go to deer.
Vulnerability to prion diseases is not as universal in human populations as with bacterial and viral infections - for example it’s been observed that people with certain genes never develop vCJD from eating BSE-infected meat (or at least their genes postpone the onset by at least a few decades).
AFAIK there's no direct evidence of prion diseases jumping species. The classic studies of scrapie prions failed to show cross-species transmission even with direct injection of infected material into the brains of rodents.
Everyone assumes BSE prions from cows are causing CJD in humans, but an alternative explanation is that organized crime was disposing human bodies in hamburger factories, and CJD is just caused by human prions.
There was at least one cluster of vCJD (in Queniborough) traced to a small traditional slaughter house that was providing to butcher shops, and that cross contamination was occurring because in a slaughter/butchering operation with only a few people it is much easier for the prions to be carried from the brain/spinal tissue to the expensive steaks. A consequence of this was that all small abattoirs in the United Kingdom went out of business.
So your theory has at least one strong counter example
"Soto’s team analyzed the retention of CWD and other infectious prion proteins and their infectivity in wheat grass roots and leaves that had been incubated with prion-contaminated material. They discovered that even highly diluted amounts of the material can bind to the roots and leaves. From there, they fed the wheat grass to hamsters, which became infected with the disease."
If you read the article instead of the press release, you'll see that Soto's group showed that wheatgrass can be contaminated by hamster prions or CWD prions, but that they only showed transmission of hamster prions to hamsters through exposure to the contaminated wheatgrass. That's not cross-species transmission.
"Everyone assumes BSE prions from cows are causing CJD in humans, but an alternative explanation is that organized crime was disposing human bodies in hamburger factories, and CJD is just caused by human prions."
Yes, that is indeed an alternative explanation, but has it actually been proposed seriously and is there any reason to believe that has ever happened ? I am genuinely curious...
shrug I don't recall seeing it in print anywhere. I've mentioned it to colleagues who study prions, and they're grossed out by the idea, but didn't think it was impossible.
I suppose you could try testing samples of hamburger for human DNA, but it would be hard to rule out innocent low levels of contamination from household dust (mostly human skin cells). Considering prions are infectious at such very low concentrations I'm not sure if any assay could rule it out.
4 paragraphs down in the main article talks about this. Yeah they don't "jump" if that's your concern. But have you ever licked your fingers without washing your hands? Are you a hunter that might have deer blood on your hands?
OTOH, possibly the oldest known prion disease is scrapie, which has been known in sheep for centuries. Scrapie, unlike BSE, does not appear to be communicable to humans. But: susceptibility to scrapie is highly genetic and easily tested for. Most shepherds in the US are doing genetic testing and selecting specifically for genetic immunity in their flocks. My own flock is about 75% fully immune, with the remainders having one of the two genes needed, which makes them highly resistant but not completely immune.
To me this seems indicative that there could well be pharmaceutical treatments for prion disease. They just haven’t been a big enough problem to really address yet.
It also may indicate that genetic resistance could quickly spread through deer populations once the disease starts exerting enough evolutionary pressure.
No, the disease starts exhibiting symptoms after 2-3 years. Deer average five years and can live for up to ten years in the wild, and are reproductively active that entire time. So there is definitely some evolutionary pressure; a deer infected at age 1 year would be expected, on average, to have less than half the offspring of a healthy deer.
It's not unusual to see deer around my house in the DC suburbs in VA(way beyond the zone depicted in the map), but we had a young one acting strangely last summer. It was just standing there, and wouldn't run if your approached it. It was very thin.
A neighbor called animal control, who came out and diagnosed this disease. They had to put the deer down, right there in the middle of the suburbs, which alarmed many neighbors.
the degree to which deer have become comfortable around humans in the area in the last 5 years is incredible. I can be feet away from them on a jog and they won't flinch. I guess that's what happens when your only predator is a car
Coyotes will take deer, but they're not that quick to target healthy adult deer. In the suburbs, they generally end up in smaller packs going after both garbage and scrubland prey like rabbits, so they're not an especially good check on white-tailed deer. (Wolves would be, but then they're not going to be allowed to stay in most suburbs.)
I bow hunt deer in New Jersey. Hunting is sacred to me and I do it for the meat. It's great to see this shared here. CWD can be contained. Most hunters are aware of it and are doing their part to fight CWD. If you don't hunt, a simple way to help is to call the police on the off chance you see a deer acting strangely.
We're screwed if it makes it into NJ. Deer population density is too high to contain it here.
My family has a 50 acre farm in the northwest part of the state and hunters usually take up to 20 deer per hunting season. I used to count herds of up to 50 deer roaming the hay fields in summer.
Wolves are not an option in NJ and while coyotes have come back I don't think they take down deer.
Where I live, we have a deer problem but houses are too close to hunt. I drive to my folk's place about an hour away to do it. Some towns hire professionals to take some out, but it's expensive. The meat does go to feeding the homeless though. I'd happily pay for the ability to hunt right in my town. It can be done safely.
We have way too many deer in our suburban area. It's technically possible to legally hunt in the area, but not practical. The permissions and everything else you need to get are way too onerous. The level of knowledge about the need to manage the deer herd for safety, public health, and deer health is just not there. Every fall the roads are stained with redish brown stains of deer being hit by cars. People get hurt or killed, and their cars get damaged.
Instead, this beneficial activity has been driven underground. We hear the deer being poached at night (when the poachers are using rifles). I imagine the more stealthy poachers are using crossbows.
I doubt anyone is regularly poaching with crossbows. Following a blood trail at night sucks, and while it’s definitely possible to kill cleanly and humanely with a bow, the deer typically has the ability to run for a few dozen yards at least.
Most poached deer where I am (Arkansas) are taken with small-caliber rifles - mostly .22 LR, but some .22 Mag and .17 HMR. They’re still loud but not nearly as loud as a centerfire rifle cartridge. They’re also generally extremely accurate and inexpensive.
It is scary, but at the same time can be managed. Some of the best information at this time comes from a gentleman named Bryan Richards. More info here:
I expect in a few years that map[1] from the article will have to be updated to make the northeast very red. Natural predators are long gone and except for northern New England there is tons of governmental red tape to discourage hunting so deer populations tend to hover around the maximum the environment can support. I expect that since the disease has broken into upstate NY it will quickly move throughout the rest of the region.
I agree the map is understating the spread. However, natural predators are not long gone. Coyotes are spreading like crazy and bears are another huge deer predation species. Hunting may be limited in Massachusetts, etc. but I assure that is not true in NY or PA. In PA, schools are closed for the first day of deer season and ~500K people head off to the woods trying to find a deer.
CWD has essentially wiped out the elk populations of SW Colorado. There was an research center in that area dedicated to breeding CWD-resistant elk, but it shut down in 2016.
At least in Wyoming and Colorado, overpopulation due to lack of predators has everything to do with ranchers killing those predators. Conservationists tell us the overpopulation either needs a sharp shooter's bullet to cull the herds, or we need more wolves and therefore wolves need protection from being shot by ranchers. And ranchers pretty thus far almost always win that contest.
What gets my goat is finicky meat eaters who somehow think they're entitled to a) beef and b) inexpensive beef. There's ton of game, in these two states, that eat plants which are basically inedible weeds to humans. Which is another thing that gets my goat, are vegetarians who want to rip out entire ecological systems to plant non-native plants so humans have food. Simple solution for all of our pest problems: eat more indigenous meat!
But then I look at this zombie map and I think, ugh. We've poisoned the well! Congratulations humans! You protected the cattle industry for so long that the native herds are contradicting disease you probably don't want to be eating.
I sympathize with a lot of your points, but take heart! People still harvest and eat deer in CWD-infected areas, they just test the deer before eating. If you get an infected deer, you destroy the meat and, I guess, take solace in knowing you removed an infected animal from the landscape.
> For example, prions in an infected deer's feces could bind to soil taken up by plants, spread to its leaves, then infect another deer that eats the leaves.
Terrifying. How old is this disease, and why is it only spreading now? Actually, there's not much in the article on the rate at which the infection is spreading - does anyone know more?
Not so fun fact - the medication HCG is derived from human urine and can possibly pass CJD on. There is no warning on the label, and since CJD takes 20-30 years to kill you once infected we don't really know yet if it's a problem or not.
Both Progynon and Emmenin, the first forms of estrogen used (1928-29), were extracted from the urine of pregnant women. The material for Progynon was initially collected in a Berlin's clinic by Shering [1], and the urine needed for Emmenin was presumably sourced through similar channels. [2] mentions how the supply was scarce, as only women in low-income groups were interested in collecting it, and only while other sources of income were not available.
By 1941-1942 they had moved away from human urine to PREgnant MARe urINe, and Premarin was born.
We also seem to be coming to the realization in the last few years that HPV is likely spread through the sterilization and re-use of gynecological equipment.
It's less than a century old, first identified in the 60s and 70s, possibly coming from Rocky Mountain sheep farming operations in the early 1900s per http://cwd-info.org/faq/.
The reason it's fairly new is that it kills the deer, and so requires high population densities to spread. At low levels, an infected deer would die off quickly, and if the population density is low, another deer is unlikely to get infected. Without wolves, and with the huge farm operations that give deer thousands of acres of corn in which to feed, deer are so overpopulated that even if an infection kills quickly, the deer is likely to spread the disease to others.
See also http://www.cgpgrey.com/blog/americapox for a discussion on similar problems in human history: TLDR; old-world cities with immigrants and animals in close contact allowed diseases to develop that never developed in the old world.
(Having watched the video): No, GP does mean "old-world cities with immigrants". However, GP meant to end with "that never developed in the new world".
The story, in brief: old-world cities, which were crowded, always had a fresh supply of (non-immune) immigrants, and had lots of human/animal contact, allowed the development of particularly lethal diseases. Such diseases did not develop in the new world, which lacked such cities. Thus there was no "americapox" to spread from the new world to the old.
I repeat the story without knowing/endorsing accuracy.
no -- OP meant the opposite of that. "Old-world" meaning anyone that traded with or interacted with the descendants of the first cities in the fertile crescent (aka anyone from Africa / Asia or Europe).
"old-world cities with immigrants and animals in close contact allowed diseases to develop that never developed in the new world"
Plants take simple elements and compounds and make very complicated organic compounds. Fungus maybe could take a complicated protein and make something with it.
Plants taking animal proteins in grains of sand and spreading then over the entire vascular system without trying to isolate and inactivate it seems unprobable to me. They react and jail many fungus inside their cells all the time blocking the pass with latex and sap before to wrap it in cellulose and lignine.
We had to shoot these "omg zombie" deer with CWD in our backyard in the 50s, just seems like nobody really measured it or panicked about it back then.
Is CWD more or less prevalent than it was in the past? The article fails to even ask this question as you'd expect from the title, it just sort of weaves some other irrelevant wikipedia info into clickbait hysteria.
To actually spread and not just maintain a baseline of X% of the population a prions disease needs to have a certain population density because it is transmitted through contact with bodily fluids of infected individuals.
Deer predators have mostly been eradicated in the contiguous US so that leaves humans and "the rest of nature" to control population density. In some areas (e.g. southwest) the land simply cannot support the density of deer population required for the disease to gain a good foothold in the deer population. In other areas human hunting is what's holding the deer population density down. Hunting has become a lot less popular since the 1950s and 1960s and the available places to do it has also dwindled so once CWD gets in it rapidly expands among the local population. See for example the massive red blotches on the map in the Chicago and DMV areas, places nobody is hunting deer so they're free to breed up to whatever population density the environment can support, a density high enough to permit the spread of a prions disease.
Assuming the current path I would expect to see CWD spread throughout most of the more heavily (deer) populated parts of the US and infect whatever % of the deer population it can given the local population density. There's a lot of untapped potential on the east coast.
In other areas human hunting is what's holding the deer population density down. Hunting has become a lot less popular since the 1950s and 1960s and the available places to do it has also dwindled so once CWD gets in it rapidly expands among the local population.
In that case, legislation which seems primarily crafted to annoy and alienate gun owners might have the unexpected consequence of increasing the spread of CWD.
Perhaps the presence of a comment like this, which itself seems primarily crafted to annoy and alienate
I suspect you may have meant the grandparent comment, however I also suspect it better applies to the parent comment.
(EDIT: Those who know enough to do a technical analysis of such laws, for example, those in California, often come to the conclusion that harassment of the gun owners might be the intended outcome. In any case, it's widely acknowledged that it is the de facto outcome.)
For the record, I was talking in a strictly epidemiological sense, which I will cede is one of the valid and rational ways to talk about gun control regulations.
> Those who know enough to do a technical analysis of such laws, for example, those in California, often come to the conclusion that harassment of the gun owners might be the intended outcome.
Citation needed.
Short of someone involved with the legislation actually saying "yes, well, the point of this is to annoy people who own guns, and we don't care what else the policy it introduces does", the premise that you actually have any idea what the motives of the people who introduce it is rather incredible, and violates the principle of charity. If there's a credible analysis to that effect, well, lead with that. Otherwise, it's most even-handed to assume that the motive behind firearm-related laws is no more to annoy and alienate any more than the purpose of automotive-related laws is to annoy and alienate drivers, though one could claim the latter case is the "de facto" outcome as well, since nobody loves traffic citations or vehicle registration requirements. Even if there's even a case we could do things another way, the laws that exist are drawn from the motives of accountability and safety. The motive for firearm laws is likely most commonly the same.
> For the record, I was talking in a strictly epidemiological sense
That claim would be more credible if you hadn't attributed a motive to legislation that was poorly sourced.
But to get back to the matter of strict epidemiology:
(1) I suppose it's possible that if the reason hunting has dwindled is primarily legal restrictions on either hunting or firearms, then that would be reflected in how the deer population is checked by humans. But I think it's much more likely that in a society with democratic representation, disinterest in hunting would lead legal obstacles to it, rather than the other way around. If there's a correlation, then that's probably the direction it goes.
(2) But that "if" is a generous one. If we expect that restrictions on hunting with firearms are a significant determinant in disease conditions on local deer populations, then we would also expect the locales with strictures on hunting or guns would be the ones we're seeing the most significant spread. Since you picked on California, presumably you'd expect that to be a primary host of the epidemic.
But if we're going by, say, the CDC map in the article, the center of the largest outbreak covers Wyoming, reaching into adjacent states, none of which are exactly famous for restrictive firearm laws (or, for that matter, party governance bent on annoying gun owners). Next on that list you've got Wisconsin and Illinois, which I suppose is good news for partisans who want to argue the center of the outbreak is the deer population in urban Chicago clearly run amok because of its restrictive gun laws. In short, the outbreak map runs largely counter to your thesis.
Now, maybe it was unfair of me to compare your unflattering narrative regarding the motives of those drafting gun laws OR your not-particularly-well-established epidemiological theories to the cognitive problems of someone suffering from prion diseases. You are presumably in full health, and I can own that perhaps it was needlessly rude to make a comparison with a person likely suffering from an illness that may have involved factors they had no awareness of or control over.
But absent a high-quality rebuttal to everything I've argued here, what's your explanation?
That claim would be more credible if you hadn't attributed a motive to legislation that was poorly sourced.
The recent Duncan v. Becerra ruling speaks to the arbitrary nature of the California laws.
I don't think your assertion about my motives is well founded, given the contents of this thread.
the outbreak map runs largely counter to your thesis.
You are doing a rather shallow analysis, which inherently contains a misreading of my assertion. I was speculating about laws as a contributing factor. This doesn't rule out other factors. If anything, the evidence you cited possibly supports gun laws as a contributing factor.
OR your not-particularly-well-established epidemiological theories to the cognitive problems of someone suffering from prion diseases.
Whoa, big nonsequitur there. I was only talking about the incidence of, not the pathology around the prion disease. I think your tone and the thread pretty much speaks for itself.
> Duncan v. Becerra ruling speaks to the arbitrary nature of the California laws.
As swellingly vague as a concept like "the arbitrary nature of California laws" is, it only almost expands to a breadth where it could cover a retreat from "law intentionally crafted to annoy and alienate gun owners," from which it is still notably distinct.
I can't say I knew very much about Duncan v. Becerra before your comment, and I am not a lawyer. But I just went and read what appears to be the ruling from Judge Benitez [1], and it appears to be 86 pages on the merits of a California law with very little to say about its intent (beyond acknowledging state intent as one of safety, anyway). Specific conclusions that annoying and alienating gun owners were among motives when the specific relevant law was crafted seem to be absent, and this while Benitez is clearly comfortable pulling a wide variety of arguments into his opinion that the law would not achieve its intended purposes and doesn't meet proposed tests around 2nd amendment muster. I'd guess that if evidence about the motives you attributed to those crafting this law were available, there'd be no reason for him to leave them out. Additionally, Benitez makes pointed care about not even attributing motives to mass shooters who have in fact selected large capacity magazines, on the basis that short of recorded statements from them, there's no way to know what those motives are. Presumably he would make the same deference to legislators. Perhaps, if his ruling is among the influences for what you're bringing to the thread, you could follow suit.
Or perhaps there's other evidence which allows you to confidently speak about lawmaking motives appears in some supporting court documentation you'll be happy to point to? Or perhaps your appeal to authority -- an unspecified authority no less ("Those who know enough to do a technical analysis of such laws") -- has another specific authority behind it?
That is, assuming you're still defending the statement "Those who know enough to do a technical analysis of such laws, for example, those in California, often come to the conclusion that harassment of the gun owners might be the intended outcome." There's always the option to walk that back as an overstep.
> You are doing a rather shallow analysis, which inherently contains a misreading of my assertion. I was speculating about laws as a contributing factor. This doesn't rule out other factors. If anything, the evidence you cited possibly supports gun laws as a contributing factor.
I suppose things would be so much easier if we could just narrate primacy in arguments rather than articulating them, right?
Or to be more plain: show, don't tell. If my analysis above is "shallow", explain how. If I misread your assertion, restate your assertion with unequivocal clarity.
And if data that shows the overwhelming balance of territory where CWD is spreading appears to be in states with laws friendly to gun ownership (as what's in the article appears to) supports your assertion that firearm restrictions contribute to the spread of CWD, you might have to do more than just say so, because that's... counterintuitive, to put it generously.
> I think your tone and the thread pretty much speaks for itself.
The funny thing is that even this portion of your comment appears to be false -- if you really believed that, why come back to further argue what "speaks for itself"?
Especially armed with a brief legal reference that doesn't seem to support your assertion (whatever its effectiveness in judging the merits rather than the intent of the law) along with an attempt to substitute a narrative of argument for elaborating one.
And if we're going to talk about tone, well, you can account for the tonal contributions of unsupported attribution of harassment as motive behind lawmaking.
Also curious how it is transmitted through vegetation. The article mentions that's how deer spread it to each other, but deer are also constantly raiding human crops as well.
CWD is a big deal here in Wisconsin. From what I've read, one factor in spreading the disease is when people put out salt and feed to attract deer. This causes the deer to congregate together and increase the chance of it spreading from one deer to another. There are kill zones within miles of my house where they're trying to eradicate the entire deer population.
I wonder if the increase in cwd is exacerbated by a lack of predation and a decrease in the ability to migrate long distances. Migration by non-fliers is severely constrained these days.
Isn't this only communicable if you eat or handle the brains of the infected animals? How does a disease that only attacks the brain wind up in the feces or other excreta?
I've read that sterilizing surgical equipment will not remove human prions from the equipment, so they can be passed on to the next person that is operated on by that equipment. Apparently they are nearly impossible to remove without destroying the equipment.
No. They’re basically misfolded proteins that tend to cause other proteins they touch to become similarly misfolded through mechanisms we don’t well understand (or at least, I don’t understand). They’re not alive. You can denature them, which more or less means destroying them. But destroying things tends to be harder than killing things.
It is terrifying certainly but I am not sure about understudied. We have studied them and found it just pretty lacking in countermeasures for deformed proteins - including avoidance because they are hard to detect. The whole field is hard.
Theoretically better protein understanding may allow for lack of better words "antigens" which bind to prions to make something harmless while not acting like prions in themselves but that would be one very big computational space and would call for a vast array to compare.
is "zombie deer virus" a new term? I've known about CWD (and CJD, mad cow, and scrapie) for a long time but this is the first time I've heard it referred to as zombie deer virus.
Hunting of white tail deer is very popular where I am from. Everyone has family members who hunt and stock up on venison. It's very common for people to share their meat with friends and neighbors and cook venison around a camp fire. Many harvested deer have been tested and confirmed infected for at least a decade now. Most people do not get their deer tested. Certain WMU (wildlife management units) are mandated that all kills be tested. Also most people field dress their own deer which means lots of blood and fluids from the deer on their hands and clothes.
I have seen a CWD deer in the wild not far from my house. It was scrawny and shaking with the strangest look on its face [1] just walking down the middle of the road. Very abnormal behavior for a deer. It's just a matter of time before it jumps to humans.
Joe Rogan actually covered CWD on one of his podcasts [2] with a few biologists as guests. You can find videos [3] of CWD on YouTube.
1. https://www.thenews.com.pk//assets/uploads/updates/2019-02-1...
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHOUpczwcyA
3. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cwd+deer