A study published in the journal 'Science', dated January 26, says that leg muscles of deer infected with chronic wasting disease (CWD), which is akin to mad-cow disease, carry infectious prions that spread the disease.
Glenn C. Telling of the University of Kentucky, lead investigator of the study said: “We don't know how the infectious prion goes from the central nervous system into the muscle. But it raises the possibility that hunters could be exposed to prions by consuming or handling meat.”
This disease, which has been found in deer and elk, is said to have spread in eleven states and two provinces in Canada.
Dr. Telling, while emphasizing that the leg meat of infected deer is noticeably contaminated, does not discount the fact that other muscle meat may be infected too.
But, Bruce Morrison, chairman of the National Chronic Wasting Disease Implementation Team said: “Fortunately, there is no evidence that humans have ever contracted chronic wasting disease from eating infected animals. I hunt, and I'm not worried." He suggests that infected parts of the animal should not be consumed.
Mr. Morrison said in the states where the disease was detected, hunters have been warned to freeze the meet of deer and elks. The head is separately tested for prions, he added.
Chronic wasting disease is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), a variation of BSE, or mad cow disease.
Telling and his colleagues supplanted genes responsible for prions in eggs of mice with the prion genes of humans. These prions did not cause (CWD).
Emphasizing venison was far from infectious, Telling said: “If I were to eat venison I wouldn't feel comfortable eating venison from areas where chronic wasting disease is endemic.”
Stanley Prusiner of the University of California, San Francisco, also a Nobel laureate, said: “This study is very important. It's frightening that there should be so many prions in the muscle meat of deer.”
Dr. Patrick Bosque, an assistant professor of neurology at the University of Colorado, while adding that hunters do develop a human prion disease known as sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), said that their numbers were far from high.
