Interesting read on CWD

[FCLightning]

Originally Posted by marky_mark

And they are sure he had cjd?
Or something that appeared like it?

That's the thing - just as we can't be sure he had CJD, we also can't be sure that CWD wasn't behind it. Official diagnosis was CJD based on symptoms and progression.

As Trump said about COVID, if we cancel all testing completely, the case count will go to zero.

[jeprli]

Originally Posted by sk270

But that doesn't get rid of prions. That needs the 40% bleach solution. And that's my point. Commercial butchers are not trying to deal with CWD prions.

You will not get a clean cutting table with a diluted bleach solution. Unfortunately most shops will do bare minimum when it comes to proper sanitazing...as per guidelines.

CWD is one of reasons why i got out of game processing. Still do it for few friends that take proper care of their harvest.

[sk270]

Originally Posted by jeprli

You will not get a clean cutting table with a diluted bleach solution. Unfortunately most shops will do bare minimum when it comes to proper sanitazing...as per guidelines.

CWD is one of reasons why i got out of game processing. Still do it for few friends that take proper care of their harvest.

I've talked to a couple of commercial butchers and they seem totally unaware of CWD precautions. That's one of the areas that I think the government departments would be dealing with if they were taking the potential threat seriously. Given the prevalence of CWD in cervids in Saskatchewan and eastern Alberta, I do not understand the governments' relatively hands-off approach.

That's also why we process our own deer and do the best we can.

[jeprli]

When i did process game, health inspectors never mentioned it. I first learned about CWD through this forum and hunting magazines.

[Big Grey Wolf]

Prions are prions. I was shocked few years back when UK had BSE outbreak, their CJD numbers also went up significantly. If CWD numbers also go up we will have more CJD if we do not take some drastic control. We now have east half of Alberta contaminated with CWD, lets get some 'hunt farms' so whole province can be contaminated.

[robfraser]

Yale University did autopsies on 44 Alzheimer’s patients.
13 per cent had CJD.
Canada has about 750,000 Alzheimer’s cases.

[Sooner]

Originally Posted by FCLightning

That's the thing - just as we can't be sure he had CJD, we also can't be sure that CWD wasn't behind it. Official diagnosis was CJD based on symptoms and progression.

As Trump said about COVID, if we cancel all testing completely, the case count will go to zero.

It's been a few years back now but my parents neighbor, a young mid 50's guy who was in good health the day we chatted on their driveway to 6 months later dying in hospital from CJD. Never hunted or ate wild game, only a beef, pork and chicken kinda guy. His wife talks about the horrible decline he went through. No one knows where he may have caught it from other than the food supply. Scary.

The way CWD is slowly marching west, one day some poor soul will be the first to get the human version.

I though I have read there is no real cleaning solution to wipe out the prions.

[marky_mark]

This completely explains why you shouldn’t use your cwd for coyote bait and should dispose of these organs and tissue in a land fill.


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[urban rednek]

Currently 42 cases of an unidentified neurological disease similar to CJD are being studied in New Brunswick. There is no connection to any known prion disease at this time.
Since CWD is prevalent throughout the eastern U.S., this bears watching.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-b...s-nb-1.5955035

Environment a chief suspect in mystery neurological disease found only in N.B.
Marie Sutherland · CBC News · Posted: Mar 18, 2021 6:41 PM AT | Last Updated: March 18
Doctors in New Brunswick are being told to be on the lookout for symptoms of an unknown neurological disease that appears to be a new condition found only in the province and is believed to be linked to environmental causes.

At a public health update on COVID-19 Thursday, Dr. Jennifer Russell, the province's chief medical officer of health, fielded a number of questions about the mystery disease that was originally identified in the province in 2015.

In an internal memo obtained by Radio-Canada, sent on March 5 by the office of the chief medical officer of health to the New Brunswick Medical Society and to associations of doctors and nurses, the department highlighted a cluster of 42 cases of a progressive neurological syndrome of unknown origin.
Symptoms similar to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

The disease has symptoms similar to those of the rare and fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, but "testing so far has ruled out known prion diseases," the memo stated.

The first case of the disease was diagnosed in 2015, according to the memo. Three years later, in 2019, 11 additional cases were discovered, with 24 more cases discovered in 2020 and another six in 2021. Five people have died.
The symptoms are similar to those of prion diseases, which include Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and some of its variants, including mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

However, despite many similarities, tests for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have so far ruled out known prion diseases, the March 5 public health memo states.

Scientists are currently looking into the possibility that this is a new variant of a prion disease — or a new disease entirely.

On Thursday, Russell confirmed it is "most likely a new disease," and noted "we haven't seen this anywhere else" in Canada.

The cases have been reported to Health Canada's Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance system, which determined that the rising number of cases should now be considered a cluster, Russell said.

At that point, she said, the March 5 memo was sent out to the province's health-care professionals.
Doctors suspect environmental link

According to preliminary data from a research group on the subject, headed by neurologist Alier Marrero of Moncton's Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre, the disease is not genetic.

"We don't know yet where this is coming from," but the leading hypothesis so far is that it's environmental, Marrero said in an interview with CBC News on Thursday.

"We believe it is acquired from exposure to something in the environment ... either food, water … toxins."
Over the course of the six years since the disease first appeared in New Brunswick in 2015, case numbers have grown steadily and "clustered" in the Moncton and Acadian Peninsula areas of the province.

"We have seen clustering of cases in some areas and we don't know why," Marrero said.

According to the Public Health memo, the median age of the cases is 59 years, although female cases tend to be younger, with an average age of 54. Cases are distributed equally among men and women, the memo said.

The symptoms of the disease are typically not very specific in the initial stages.

"It's usually behavioural changes … for instance, an excess of anxiety, a little bit of irritability, unexplained pains in the limbs, muscle spasms, insomnia," Marrero said.

As the disease progresses over a course of 18 to 36 months, loss of balance and co-ordination have been observed, and "sometimes patients have abnormal and rapidly progressing brain atrophy."
No public health threat

However, Marrero and Russell both stopped short of calling the cases a public health threat.

"Fear is usually bad advice because it will paralyze us," Marrero said. "We are working very hard to figure this out, so we can stop it, so we can treat it."

He advised that if anyone suspects they have symptoms of the disease, they should report them to their doctor, who will then refer them to the clinic.

Symptoms that might appear to be related to the disease could actually be caused by another condition, he said.

"For instance the patient could have multiple sclerosis, they could have Alzheimer's disease ... or some other condition that could be known and treated. So it's important that they get referred and evaluated."
Russell agreed.

"Right now, it's just about awareness, making sure that physicians are watching for neurological symptoms like this so they can refer them to be assessed," she said.

"We have a lot of work ahead of us in terms of trying to determine the cause."

They didn't correlate CJD to BSE, until they did.