Would you eat a CWD-positive animal?

[ImBillT]

But is 232 really a bunch? Over 40,000 die in car crashes in the US every year. Probably shouldn't drive not safe.

Is 232 a bunch? Are you advocating that the EU reauthorize adding “tankage”(I think that’s the correct term) to cattle feed, and putting BSE infected cattle back in the food supply? If the 232 number is low. Why not? Did you see any videos of those people? I still remember seeing a video of teenage girl infected with BSE at the time. I can’t say that I want those cattle in my food supply.

Would CWD stop at 232? Hopefully. Researchers have suggested a period in excess of ten years from exposure to symptom onset in humans. So how many people will already have before people decide the risk is definitely non-zero? Not sure. Millions of people are millions of cattle before 232 died. Will the numbers be that favorable for deer? Hopefully even more favorable. But we don’t eat deer the way we eat cattle. Most people(not all) don’t eat an entire cow. They buy a few packages of beef, they eat those, and then they buy some more beef that came from an entirely different cow. When people in Europe eat beef that is mostly from healthy cattle and contained a few meals from an infected cow was their risk lower than someone who ate an entire infected cow? Probably. How does that stack up to deer? It seems like eating an entire deer would increase the risk compared to eating a few meals from an infected deer and then eating healthy deer. All that said, the risk from eating CWD infected deer may be far lower than eating infected cattle. I don’t know.

Does anything that kills fewer people than driving suddenly become a risk we should ignore? Well no. That’s a ludicrous suggestion that ignores an awful lot of variables, as well as the payoff of taking the risk. Driving offers me a LOT of benefits. So does eating a deer. That 40,000 number totally ignores all of the risks that contributed to those risks and assumes that any time I get in my car I’m at the same risk as anyone else at any other time. But the fact is that driving drunk increases my risk. Driving in adverse weather conditions. How I choose to drive. Texting and driving. Young drivers are at higher risk because they haven’t learned how to drive safely, but we expose them to that risk knowing that they’ll get better, and they’ll need to drive for their entire lives. Older people are at higher risk, and we take their driver’s licenses away. We also have laws against driving drunk, texting and driving, and speeding. Sometimes we choose to leave early because a storm may come through that we shouldn’t drive through. Sometimes we wait the storm out. Sometimes we drive through rain or snow, but we do so at reduced speed, and increased care. Is it being a Karen to modify your driving technique when road conditions change? Or not to drive after drinking? Is it being a bunch of Karen’s to want our police to enforce traffic laws? Eating deer benefits me. Eating a deer that tested positive for CWD carries a seemingly low, but unknown risk, which I just don’t feel any need to take. I can eat the deer in my freezer than didn’t test positive. If I get the result in time and feel the need for replacement deer meat, I can shoot some does. I don’t see the payoff to eating a deer that tested positive.

I don’t know much for certain, but comparing 232 deaths from BSE to 40,000 automobile deaths that include drunks and reckless drivers just doesn’t seem like a reasonable comparison. Also, if one of those 232 people had been my child, and he would never have become sick if the europe had just stopped feeding sick cattle to other cattle and stopped allowing sick cattle into the food supply, I would be very angry.

 

[ImBillT]

What evidence would be required for those who are not eating to eat it? Can you ever prove a negative with absolute certainty?

If they couldn’t infect other species via brain probes that might convince me. But they can. You do make a good point. It would be hard to convince me to eat a sick animal when I have perfectly wonderful alternatives, regardless of the evidence. That said, there is in fact evidence that pushes me in the opposite direction.

Frankly that applies to any illness in any animal. I shot a hog once that turned out to have a large tumor and be mostly starved. I didn’t realize that when I shot it. But I lost my appetite for it once I saw it. I assume that cancer doesn’t spread that way, but I didn’t really want to eat that sick animal once I realized it was sick. I wouldn’t really want to eat an animal that tested positive for CWD even with a complete lack of evidence that it could jump species. Although as mentioned, it has been proven to jump species in the lab via some means.

 

[ImBillT]

To the OP.

No I would not. I’m sure if I was starving that I would eat all sorts of things that I would not eat today. But as a person will alternatives, no I would not.

 

[ImBillT]

Eat it, don't eat it, do whatever you wish. Why do people get so worked up over how other people live their lives?

I pretty much agree and entered the thread to say “no. The risk seems low, but no I wouldn’t” And then saw a lot of inaccurate information being thrown out, and felt like I had to address a lot more than I bargained for.

 

[ImBillT]

OP here.. the responses to this have been lively, but I appreciate everyone's input. I read each of these responses and talked to friends asking them the same question. I wasn't expecting to feel so conflicted on what to do.

I decided against consuming the animal. My reasoning is a little shaky, and I admit that I have double standards. Would I knowingly eat a CWD animal? Sure. Would I eat an untested animal, knowing very well there is a chance that it could have CWD. Absolutely. But I'm not just feeding myself. So I asked myself, would I feed my wife and two daughters a CWD animal? Not a chance. And that was that. (sorry @WildWill - I had to use that line. Enjoy your hunt with your son!)

Who knows, maybe my attitude will change over time. CWD isn't going away anytime soon.

I don’t understand his pet peeve. I take plenty of risks that I wouldn’t take with my children. Is that so strange?

 

[ImBillT]

I agree that the car crashes are apples to oranges comparison. And even the comparison of the risk of eating wings with salmonella is not pertinent because OPs question was about knowingly positive meat. We all wouldn't eat meat knowingly that contained salmonella.

However, we do know that eating artifical sweeteners, artifical colors, blue light from screens, seed oils etc (edit: tobacco in any form I bet is another one many use daily but wont quit) are scientifically proven to causes health issues some severe.

My question to everyone saying I won't eat it bc there might be a risk or I feed my family that meat; you are making sure to take all those other scientifically known poisons out of your diet and families diets right?

Ultimately you do you and who cares what someone else thinks. But to the people who use those excuses you better be living a 100% clean lifestyle.

Good questions. I take some of the precautions. We cook our chicken and pork to recommended temps(lower if it’s slower). We buy organic when it’s reasonable and appears to be high quality. I make an extra effort for organic with grain products. I don’t go crazy with it. If the organic produce doesn’t look good, is out of stock, or is unusually high priced, we eat the regular stuff. I assume I’ve cut my exposure to some pesticides. The organic label isn’t perfect. I’m perfectly happy with a lot of things that aren’t allowed and skeptical of some things that are. It’s probably a step in the right direction. I cook my chicken. We limit our processed food intake and limit our children’s intake of those things to a higher degree. The kids aren’t allowed to have anything containing red 40 after linking some very wild behavior to it. I can’t follow everything and get it all right. It seems pretty easy though for me to just not eat a deer that tests positive. That said, I haven’t killed one that tested positive.

 

[ImBillT]

Let's do a hypothetical: And say the money dries up and they stop testing for CWD. Is everyone going to stop eating deer/elk because they might be positive or are you going to just go about life like everyone did before the internet and testing?

I’ve paid for a test where it was not covered because it was not mandatory. $25 or $35 for peace of mind while eating a cow elk was well worth it to me, so I don’t see how the money drying up is a realistic limitation.

Let’s just assume it becomes impossible to test. I don’t know. I would almost certainly become more selective on where I hunt. I guess I can’t say for sure.

 

[Archer86]

I’ve paid for a test where it was not covered because it was not mandatory. $25 or $35 for peace of mind while eating a cow elk was well worth it to me, so I don’t see how the money drying up is a realistic limitation.

Let’s just assume it becomes impossible to test. I don’t know. I would almost certainly become more selective on where I hunt. I guess I can’t say for sure.

Bse test for cattle have only been shown to be accurate after the cow has been infected for 4 to 5 years and is with in 3 to 4 months of showing symptoms. I suspect cwd test results will be similiar so seams possible most negatives could actually a false positive? More hunters have ate cwd infected deer then what we want to think. I kind of feel like the test give a false sense of security i am guilty of that as i test most my deer.

NIH study shows chronic wasting disease unlikely to move from animals to people

Study of cerebral organoids reinforces evidence for substantial species barrier

www.nih.gov

 

[WildWill]

I don’t understand his pet peeve. I take plenty of risks that I wouldn’t take with my children. Is that so strange?

What would be strange is if everytime before you took one of those risk you loudly proclaimed "I would never let my kids do this"!

 

[Irrelevant]

If they couldn’t infect other species via brain probes that might convince me. But they can.

lthough as mentioned, it has been proven to jump species in the lab via some means.

NIH study shows chronic wasting disease unlikely to move from animals to people

Study of cerebral organoids reinforces evidence for substantial species barrier

www.nih.gov

 

[Hunting Wife]

Bse test for cattle have only been shown to be accurate after the cow has been infected for 4 to 5 years and is with in 3 to 4 months of showing symptoms. I suspect cwd test results will be similiar so seams possible most negatives could actually a false positive? More hunters have ate cwd infected deer then what we want to think. I kind of feel like the test give a false sense of security i am guilty of that as i test most my deer.

NIH study shows chronic wasting disease unlikely to move from animals to people

Study of cerebral organoids reinforces evidence for substantial species barrier

www.nih.gov

What evidence would be required for those who are not eating to eat it? Can you ever prove a negative with absolute certainty?

So to these points…no. @Irrelevant is absolutely correct- it is statistically impossible to “prove” a negative. That’s why results are not reported as “negative”. They are reported as “not detected”. This all goes way back to the basic statistics we learned in school. There is always some non-zero probability that the animal is positive, but not far enough along in the disease progression to have detectable levels of prions. Then there is an additional non-zero probability that the subsample of the lymph node that got tested didn’t contain prions that were actually there. The test itself is not 100%- there is some non-zero chance that the test fails to detect prions even if they are present in the sample. So all of these little non-zero probabilities add up.

We all make decisions every day about things to include or exclude from our modern diet. We monitor our health, talk to our doctor, monitor intake of certain things or eliminate them entirely, based on our own health, our own value judgements and our own risk assessments. I have tossed deer that had septic pneumonia, even though the chance of me actually getting sick isn’t super high, I could have cooked the shit out of the meat and inactivated any organisms in there, and I could probably have been treated if I did happen to get sick. And many people here have done the same. Oddly enough, very few people question that decision. Yet talk about a 100% fatal disease shrouded in uncertainty and let the judgements roll in. Weird.

History has shown us again and again that eating diseased animals is generally not a good idea, thus I choose not to eat anything that I know is diseased. That’s my comfort level. If your decision-making paradigm leads you elsewhere, I kinda feel like its none of my business.

 

[Nick87]

I think people might feel a little different had some game agencies not created so much distrust on the subject. At least that is the way it is here. Myself included

 

[Irrelevant]

I think people might feel a little different had some game agencies not created so much distrust on the subject. At least that is the way it is here. Myself included

I don't have that here. I fall into the camp of I either need to be comfortable eating it, along with all the other potentially catastrophic choices I make, or stop hunting (not literally quite yet but we're going that direction).

 

[Nick87]

(not literally quite yet but we're going that direction)

Who is?

 

[Hem]

Its my feeling Montana fwp is pushing the CWD concern more for data collecting/tracking of the disease than anything else. Using the disease scare increases hunter involvement i.e.provides more data.
Waiting for test results on my deer currently. Only because tech at check station said the area was testing high at 1:2. Note: the current info on-line states 1:4.
So which is it?
Healthy looking deer, I hate to toss it.

 

[Irrelevant]

Who is?

Me, myself, and I

But was generally referring to the collective expansion of CWD

 

[Nick87]

Its my feeling Montana fwp is pushing the CWD concern more for data collecting/tracking of the disease than anything else. Using the disease scare increases hunter involvement i.e.provides more data.

That's what ours claims to be doing as well. Plenty of other ways to collect data other than waging war on deer herd.

 

[ImBillT]

NIH study shows chronic wasting disease unlikely to move from animals to people

Study of cerebral organoids reinforces evidence for substantial species barrier

www.nih.gov

That’s positive news as far as I’m concerned. Although checking for six months in something that may take decades to go from infection to symptoms might be slightly less ideal. Still, it’s likely detectable before symptoms occur. Hey, it’s good news. At this point I wouldn’t eat one that tested positive. I probably wouldn’t eat a deer that ai knew was sick with various other diseases either.

 

[ImBillT]

Bse test for cattle have only been shown to be accurate after the cow has been infected for 4 to 5 years and is with in 3 to 4 months of showing symptoms. I suspect cwd test results will be similiar so seams possible most negatives could actually a false positive? More hunters have ate cwd infected deer then what we want to think. I kind of feel like the test give a false sense of security i am guilty of that as i test most my deer.

NIH study shows chronic wasting disease unlikely to move from animals to people

Study of cerebral organoids reinforces evidence for substantial species barrier

www.nih.gov

That definitely seems logical. They can’t possibly get brain or lymph nodes to test positive immediately after exposure. It seems logical that plenty of deer that tested negative had already been exposed and made some progression toward the end result. I suppose that’s why results say “not detected” instead of “CWD free”.

Is a deer that has been exposed but hasn’t progressed to the point of testing positive a false sense of security? Hmmm. Would it not indicate a lower risk compared to a deer that did test positive? I feel like it’s probably indicative of a lessened risk. I guess I can’t be sure. Psychologically it feels better. It’s likely that I’ve eaten pork, beef or venison from an animal with cancer, but I didn’t eat the one I shot that had a cantaloupe sized tumor and was emaciated.

 

[Islander]

Casual contact doesn’t seem to spread mad cow or cjd, but it does transmit scrapie and cwd to deer an sheep. I guess time may tell on how CWD spreads to other species and how it behaves in those species.

Nope.

CWD primarily spreads through prolonged/repeated exposure to prions via shared feeding areas, mineral licks, and social contact. Casual brief contact is much less likely to transmit the disease. The highest risk comes from areas where deer congregate repeatedly.