Mad elk disease, a reality?
to heighten fears that people in North America are contracting a
new form of the fatal brain disorder from deer, reports the New
Scientist.
The death of three hunters from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is likely to heighten fears that people in North America are contracting a new form of the fatal brain disorder from deer, reports the New Scientist. But, according to the report, the surveillance system in the US is so inadequate that even if these fears are unfounded, it is impossible for researchers to rule out the possibility.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease spreading among elk and mule deer in North America. It is similar to mad cow disease, raising fears that people eating contaminated venison could develop a form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) like that blamed on contaminated beef, which has killed about 200 people in Britain.
This is why the latest cases of CJD in hunters from the states of Washington and Alaska are causing concern. Two of the men were treated by neurologists Natalia Murinova and Ali Samii at the Seattle VA hospital. "These two cases may well have no relationship to CWD in elk and deer," said Samii. "But the fact that it happened in these two patients brings up that question."
According to the New Scientist report, Ermias Belay, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that the body will not be investigating the cases because there is no evidence that the men ate CWD-infected meat. So far the CDC has only investigated CJD cases from states where deer are known to have the disease. But Washington and Alaska are not necessarily disease-free: states do not have to test for CWD until the disease is known to be present, continued the report.
The CDC has investigated a few suspect CJD cases in the past, and found no compelling evidence of CWD transmission to humans. However, "the data seeking such evidence are very limited", Belay admitted.
