Infectious prions found in deer meat

The Denver Post ^ | Jan. 27, 2006 | Katy Human

[girlangler]

FYI Ping.

[barj]

This is why many were laughing when I was at an animal ID seminar. The government wants all livestock electronicaly marked for ID and tracking of many of the diseases that wildlife carries. Your herd shows signs and is removed, but infectious wildlife stays.

[Pylot]

Yes and you probably also know that the deer and the antelope frequently graze amoung the cattle on the range!

[barj]

They don't just graze, but I've seen the deer and the antelope play, and seldom was heard a discouraging word.

Sounds almost like King's I have a dream speach.

I have a dream that one day deer and antelopes will clasp hooves and sing in the words . . .

[ARealMothersSonForever]

When injected into laboratory mouse brains, the muscle tissue caused wasting disease.

The only conclusion that I can draw from this is to quit injecting hamstring muscle into our brains. No mention of backstrap, but I will immediately quit injecting it into my brain.

[jrd]

yes but do the animal rights people feed the wildlife with supplemental feed in the winter?

[agere_contra]

Prions have not been shown to be infectious yet. They are suspected to be infectious - hence the name (proteinaceous infectious particle or Prion) but their mechanisms of action and reproduction are unknown.

There's enough bad, nay appalling science in virology without making up more infectious particles without proof.

[Red Badger]

That's it, no more venison for me!..............

[outofhere2]

Scary

[Red Badger]

Isn't a Prion that new car from Honda?...........

[P-Marlowe]

This is why I prefer oriental food. None of that "red" meat for me:

[Billthedrill]

A prion is nothing more than a malformed protein, and is not harmful unless it happens to be close enough in morphology to a human protein. That's the good news. The bad news is that a lot of them are.

Venison. It's what's for dinner.

[TChris]

As far as I know, the prion link is still not widely accepted as the vector for CWD. The prions have been found in beef, cow milk and other places as well. Still, CJD is very rare in humans, so the simple presence of prions is not necessarily an indicator of risk for consumption.

[cyborg]

ping

[Roccus]

I've got a back strap defrosting right now!

[vetvetdoug]

Koch's Postulates have been fulfilled in this particular case. There are nerves in every muscle of the animal's body and if CWD follows neural tissue it is logical that the muscle will have the prions. Any animal that I even suspect has been around a prion infected animal(CWD, BSE, Scrapie) will not make it to my table if at all possible.

[lilylangtree]

I'm forwarding this to a childhood friend who loves deer meat.

[Marie]

yes but do the animal rights people feed the wildlife with supplemental feed in the winter?

You may have answered one of my questions. If the animal can only be infected by eating another infected animal (or by injecting tissue from an infected animal into their brains) then how did the wild population get it? If it's *common* in wildlife with only supplemental feed, then I fear our meat supply is probably in worse shape than I ever imagined. We may be in real trouble.

[JustDoItAlways]

There a number of very suspicious cases of transmission to humans but the links are not definitive enough to be called proven. Here is link to the best study done on the cases carried out by the CDC.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol10no6/03-1082.htm