The risk of a CWD spillover event is growing, the panel of experts say, and the risk is higher in states where big game hunting for the table remains a tradition. In a survey of US residents by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20% said they had hunted deer or elk, and more than 60% said they had eaten venison or elk mea
The movement of meat around the country also raises concerns of environmental contamination. CWD is not caused by bacteria or a virus, but by “prions”: abnormal, transmissible pathogenic agents that are difficult to destroy.
Today, as CWD spreads inexorably to more deer and elk, more people – probably tens of thousands each year – are consuming infected venison,
Well, that was a torrid read
Better surveillance to identify disease in people and game animals is more urgent than ever, experts say. Osterholm says the Trump administration’s proposed cuts to public health funding and research, and the US’s withdrawal from international institutions, such as the World Health Organization, could not be happening at a worse time.
I don’t know, religious revelations nutters might be happy /s
Indeed, autoclaves don’t kill them, so they can spread on surgical instruments etc as well.
Prions are stable proteins, forming beta sheet conformation, which stack on top of each other, making a densely packed aggregate as they call it, impervious to most chemical, radiation and low heat. Most normal protein are conformation of alpha helix’s.
The way prion beta sheet converts alpha helix to.beta sheet conformation is usually due to a specific part of the prion.