Chronic Wasting

Chronic Wasting

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
Years ago I was hunting Whitetail in Iowa and got lucky with a fairly impressive buck. Always mindful that harvesting an animal should lead to consuming that kill, I shared some great venison with friends. Not long after that there were reports of a guy in Wisconsin who had eaten a lot of Whitetail and had been struck with chronic wasting disease which perforate the brain and ultimately leads to death. I never got over that story and have always wondered so I called Dr. Scott Leibsle, a veterinarian for the state of Idaho, and asked: " Does an elk hunter, does a mule deer hunter have sufficient reason to worry so that he does not harvest and animal and/or if he does, he does not eat the meat? I cannot answer that question David. The peer-reviewed research and science, the statistical model to develop what the risk is, is just not there and all we can do is take precautions but we do not have enough information for me to give you an educated response as to your question. There is just so much that we do not know about these TSE's that I can't answer this question definitively. Here is what is thought. The prions exist in nervous tissue. I eat game meat all the time. I love elk, venison, I eat all of it. The prions are concentrated in nervous tissue and so the brain and the spinal cord is obviously where the greatest concentration of prions is and so the recommendation is to avoid processing the nervous tissue that are associated with those meats. I continue to consume venison and elk, it does not dissuade me to eat the game that I may harvest or my friends might harvest. The concentration of the prions that the spot to be in the nervous tissue and just avoid processing that part of it is typically what the recommendation has been."

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