# Fear of CWD worries Michigan deer and elk farmers



## terry (Sep 13, 2002)

Fear of chronic wasting disease worries Michigan deer and elk farmers

MIKE TYREE

HOPE TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - White-tailed deer and elk graze behind 
10-foot-tall fences on pastureland tilled for a century by Robert 
Bradfield's family.

Crop farming didn't interest Bradfield, so two years ago he introduced 
dozens of deer and elk, hoping the alternate farm commodity could help 
keep their property in his family another 100 years.

"I know a lot of people think having these captive animals isn't 
natural," Bradfield said, as a bull elk ambled to within a few feet of 
his idling pickup. "But where are they going to go, the way the land's 
disappearing?"

Bradfield hopes to find a market for elk meat, which he trumpets as a 
lowfat, low-cholesterol alternative to beef. But he waded into the deer 
and elk trade too late for a 1990s boom and too early to foresee 
consequences of a contagious animal disease some fear could cripple the 
business and devastate Michigan's wild deer herd.

Chronic wasting disease, a fatal brain disorder that attacks deer and 
elk, was once thought relegated to the western United States. 
Nationally, it's been detected in wild deer and elk in eight states, 
including Wisconsin and Illinois, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture 
is monitoring captive and wild animals in another 14 states, including 
Michigan, Indiana and Iowa.

Chronic wasting disease hasn't surfaced yet in Michigan, based on tests 
of about 5,800 deer and elk. But fear of the disease worries hunters, 
tourism officials and businessmen such as Bradfield, who are already 
confronted with bovine tuberculosis, another contagious animal disease.

"In my opinion, TB is ungodly scary and CWD is 100 times worse than 
that," said Bradfield, who keeps 25 elk and about 45 deer on more than 
40 acres of pasture and woodlot. "If this gets out of hand and the 
people decide we're bringing this into the state, we're in trouble. It 
would kill the business."

Michigan is home to some 900 facilities that stock thousands of deer, 
elk - also known as cervids - and other exotic species used for 
breeding, hunting, exhibition and meat sales. Operations range in size 
from a few acres to sprawling land tracts.

Industry representatives say it's a $300 million business in Michigan 
and in the 1990s was touted as an up-and-coming trade.

Today, some deer and elk operators are selling their herds - if they can 
find buyers - in the face of chronic wasting disease, increased 
government regulation and deflated prices.

"It's the end for me," said John DeRoche, who once kept 150 white-tailed 
deer and some elk on his property near Atlanta, Mich. He says he earned 
a profit in past years, but can't recover from disease threats and 
regulations.

But Ken Keeley, who owns a hunting ranch in Barbeau, with about 400 
whitetails, isn't giving up.

"You can panic or you can accept the situations and diseases as they 
come down the pike," said Keeley, vice president of the Michigan Deer 
and Elk Farmers Association. "As we move through this and we learn more 
about how this particular disease started, how it spread, I think we'll 
be fine."

Michigan banned captive deer and elk imports in April 2002, but herd 
owners previously shipped animals here from other states and Canada, 
including areas now known to have chronic wasting disease problems. 
Those imports concern deer and elk industry critics, as do occasional 
instances when captive animals escape to the wild.

"The captive cervid industry, in my mind, has to be viewed as one of 
those high-risk industries where the potential for something to go wrong 
is so great, it has to be very highly regulated," said Bill Murphy of 
the Michigan Resource Stewards, a group of about 100 retired state 
employees who believe that wild deer protection should take precedence.

Deer and elk are registered and tagged, monitored and tested for chronic 
wasting disease upon death, said the agriculture department's Doug Hoort.

Michigan's Natural Resources Commission also announced statewide deer 
baiting and feeding bans if chronic wasting disease is located within 50 
miles of the border.

"I feel pretty confident that we have a good system in place," said 
Hoort, adding most cervid operators "get it ... they can't afford to 
have something like this happen in their industry."

Those operators who don't comply with higher standards risk being 
squeezed out because hunting preserves and breeders balk at buying 
animals not designated as disease-free.

Bradfield, whose farm is near Midland, about 30 miles northwest of 
Saginaw, says he won't accept outside deer or elk into his herd, which 
he hopes will help protect his animals. He says he's as committed as 
anyone in the chronic wasting battle and said ranchers, hunters and the 
state must band together.

"There's no time for finger-pointing now," he said. "Let's get together 
and fix this."

© The Canadian Press, 2003

http://www.cp.org/english/online/full/agriculture/030627/a062726A.html

> feeding bans if chronic wasting disease is located within 50 miles of 
the border.

dumbest thing i ever heard. they should ban it PERIOD. the 50 mile statute
makes absolutely no sense (to me)... IGNORANCE IS BLESS !!!


Oral transmission and early lymphoid tropism of chronic wasting disease PrPres in mule deer fawns (Odocoileus hemionus )
Christina J. Sigurdson1, Elizabeth S. Williams2, Michael W. Miller3, Terry R. Spraker1,4, Katherine I. O'Rourke5 and Edward A. Hoover1

Department of Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523- 1671, USA1
Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Wyoming, 1174 Snowy Range Road, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82070, USA 2
Colorado Division of Wildlife, Wildlife Research Center, 317 West Prospect Road, Fort Collins, CO 80526-2097, USA3
Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, 300 West Drake Road, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1671, USA4
Animal Disease Research Unit, Agricultural Research Service, US Department of Agriculture, 337 Bustad Hall, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-7030, USA5

Author for correspondence: Edward Hoover.Fax +1 970 491 0523. e-mail [email protected]


Abstract
Top
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References

Mule deer fawns (Odocoileus hemionus) were inoculated orally with a brain homogenate prepared from mule deer with naturally occurring chronic wasting disease (CWD), a prion-induced transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Fawns were necropsied and examined for PrP res, the abnormal prion protein isoform, at 10, 42, 53, 77, 78 and 80 days post-inoculation (p.i.) using an immunohistochemistry assay modified to enhance sensitivity. PrPres was detected in alimentary-tract-associated lymphoid tissues (one or more of the following: retropharyngeal lymph node, tonsil, Peyer's patch and ileocaecal lymph node) as early as 42 days p.i. and in all fawns examined thereafter (53 to 80 days p.i.). No PrPres staining was detected in lymphoid tissue of three control fawns receiving a control brain inoculum, nor was PrPres detectable in neural tissue of any fawn. PrPres-specific staining was markedly enhanced by sequential tissue treatment with formic acid, proteinase K and hydrated autoclaving prior to immunohistochemical staining with monoclonal antibody F89/160.1.5. These results indicate that CWD PrP res can be detected in lymphoid tissues draining the alimentary tract within a few weeks after oral exposure to infectious prions and may reflect the initial pathway of CWD infection in deer. The rapid infection of deer fawns following exposure by the most plausible natural route is consistent with the efficient horizontal transmission of CWD in nature and enables accelerated studies of transmission and pathogenesis in the native species.


snip...

Oral exposure is the most plausible pathway by which the CWD prion may be introduced to deer in nature. Consequently, we chose this means of inoculation in an attempt to demonstrate the feasibility of CWD transmission by this route and to study early lymphoid tissue tropism of the PrPres in deer. Each deer was repeatedly exposed to a known infectious CWD inoculum over a 5-day-period because recent results with scrapie in hamsters indicate repeated oral exposure increases the incidence of infection (Diringer et al., 1998 ). Because mice are relatively resistant to CWD (M. Bruce, personal communication) precluding bioassay, and because several studies have shown that PrPres strongly correlates with disease (McKinley et al., 1983 ; Race et al. , 1998 ), we employed an enhanced immunostaining method (formic acid, proteinase K and hydrated autoclaving) to detect PrPres in situ. Formic acid and hydrated autoclaving have been previously described for PrPres epitope exposure prior to immunohistochemistry (IHC) (Miller et al., 1994 ; van Keulen et al., 1995 ). Using these methods, we demonstrate PrPres in regional lymph nodes as early as 6 weeks after oral exposure of deer fawns to the CWD agent.

snip...

Discussion
Top
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References

These results indicate that mule deer fawns develop detectable PrP res after oral exposure to an inoculum containing CWD prions. In the earliest post-exposure period, CWD PrPres was traced to the lymphoid tissues draining the oral and intestinal mucosa (i.e. the retropharyngeal lymph nodes, tonsil, ileal Peyer's patches and ileocaecal lymph nodes), which probably received the highest initial exposure to the inoculum. Hadlow et al. (1982) demonstrated scrapie agent in the tonsil, retropharyngeal and mesenteric lymph nodes, ileum and spleen in a 10-month-old naturally infected lamb by mouse bioassay. Eight of nine sheep had infectivity in the retropharyngeal lymph node. He concluded that the tissue distribution suggested primary infection via the gastrointestinal tract. The tissue distribution of PrPres in the early stages of infection in the fawns is strikingly similar to that seen in naturally infected sheep with scrapie. These findings support oral exposure as a natural route of CWD infection in deer and support oral inoculation as a reasonable exposure route for experimental studies of CWD.

snip...

full text;

http://vir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/cont...ir.sgmjournals.org/cgi/search&journalcode=vir

Oral transmission of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie to
nonhuman primates.

Gibbs CJ Jr, Amyx HL, Bacote A, Masters CL, Gajdusek DC.

Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease of humans and scrapie disease of
sheep and goats were transmitted to squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus)
that were exposed to the infectious agents only by their nonforced
consumption of known infectious tissues. The asymptomatic incubation
period in the one monkey exposed to the virus of kuru was 36 months;
that in the two monkeys exposed to the virus of Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease was 23 and 27 months, respectively; and that in the two monkeys
exposed to the virus of scrapie was 25 and 32 months, respectively.
Careful physical examination of the buccal cavities of all of the
monkeys failed to reveal signs or oral lesions. One additional monkey
similarly exposed to kuru has remained asymptomatic during the 39 months
that it has been under observation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6997404&dopt=Abstract


1: Dev Biol Stand 1993;80:9-13

Transmission of human spongiform encephalopathies to experimental
animals: comparison of the chimpanzee and squirrel monkey.

Asher DM, Gibbs CJ Jr, Sulima MP, Bacote A, Amyx H, Gajdusek DC.

Laboratory of Central Nervous System Studies, National Institute of
Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20992.

The agents of kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have been consistently
transmitted from patients with those diseases to chimpanzees and
squirrel monkeys, as well as to other new-world primates, with average
incubation periods of two or three years. No other animals have been
found so consistently susceptible to the agents in human tissues. More
rapid and convenient assays for the infectious agents would greatly
facilitate research on the spongiform encephalopathies of humans.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8270119&dopt=Abstract

Aguzzi warns of CWD danger

The TSE family of diseases also includes chronic wasting disease (CWD)
in deer, a condition that has spread in the US in recent years (Nature
416, 569; 2002). Speaking at the Days of Molecular Medicine conference
in La Jolla in March, prion expert Adriano Aguzzi issued a strong
warning against underestimating this form of TSE.

"For more than a decade, the US has by-and-large considered mad cows
to be an exquisitely European problem. The perceived need to protect
US citizens from this alien threat has even prompted the deferral of
blood donors from Europe," he said. "Yet the threat-from-within
posed by CWD needs careful consideration, since the evidence that CWD
is less dangerous to humans than BSE is less-than-complete. Aguzzi
went on to point out that CWD is arguably the most mysterious of all
prion diseases.

"Its horizontal spread among the wild population is exceedingly
efficient, and appears to have reached a prevalence unprecedented even
by BSE in the UK at its peak. The pathogenesis of CWD, therefore,
deserves a vigorous research effort. Europeans also need to think
about this problem, and it would be timely and appropriate to increase
CWD surveillance in Europe too." Aguzzi has secured funding from the
National Institutes of Health to investigate CWD, and the effort will
be lead by Christina Sigurdson in his department at the University of
Zurich. KAREN BIRMINGHAM, LONDON

This quote from Dr. Gambetti is especially significant since he is the
rather cautious TSE researcher under contract with the Centers for Disease
Control to examine the brains of individuals who have died of CJD.
-----------------

Pierluigi Gambetti, director of the National Prion Disease Pathology
Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland,
said all deer should be tested for chronic wasting disease before any
processing is done.

"There is no way around it," he said. "Nobody should touch that meat
unless it has been tested."
--------------------------------------

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/...ion/3954298.htm

SEWING THE SEEDS OF MAD COW (CWD) THROUGH ANIMAL PROTEIN $

snip...

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION

April 9, 2001 WARNING LETTER

01-PHI-12 CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED

Brian J. Raymond, Owner Sandy Lake Mills 26 Mill Street P.O. Box 117 Sandy Lake, PA 16145 PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT

Tel: 215-597-4390

Dear Mr. Raymond:

Food and Drug Administration Investigator Gregory E. Beichner conducted an inspection of your animal feed manufacturing operation, located in Sandy Lake, Pennsylvania, on March 23, 2001, and determined that your firm manufactures animal feeds including feeds containing prohibited materials. The inspection found significant deviations from the requirements set forth in Title 21, code of Federal Regulations, part 589.2000 - Animal Proteins Prohibited in Ruminant Feed. The regulation is intended to prevent the establishment and amplification of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) . Such deviations cause products being manufactured at this facility to be misbranded within the meaning of Section 403(f), of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act).

Our investigation found failure to label your swine feed with the required cautionary statement "Do Not Feed to cattle or other Ruminants" The FDA suggests that the statement be distinguished by different type-size or color or other means of highlighting the statement so that it is easily noticed by a purchaser.

In addition, we note that you are using approximately 140 pounds of cracked corn to flush your mixer used in the manufacture of animal feeds containing prohibited material. This flushed material is fed to wild game including deer, a ruminant animal. Feed material which may potentially contain prohibited material should not be fed to ruminant animals which may become part of the food chain.

The above is not intended to be an all-inclusive list of deviations from the regulations. As a manufacturer of materials intended for animal feed use, you are responsible for assuring that your overall operation and the products you manufacture and distribute are in compliance with the law. We have enclosed a copy of FDA's Small Entity Compliance Guide to assist you with complying with the regulation... blah, blah, blah...

http://www.fda.gov/foi/warning_letters/g1115d.pdf

snip...

full text;

http://www.americansportsman.com/me...ing/deer/viewpost.asp?mb=deerhunting&post=642

Oral transmission of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie to nonhuman primates.
[[NON-FORCED CONSUMPTION...TSS]]
J Infect Dis. 1980 Aug;142(2):205-8.
PMID: 6997404 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Oral transmission of kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and scrapie to nonhuman primates.

Gibbs CJ Jr, Amyx HL, Bacote A, Masters CL, Gajdusek DC.

Kuru and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease of humans and scrapie disease of sheep and goats were transmitted to squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) that were exposed to the infectious agents only by their nonforced consumption of known infectious tissues. The asymptomatic incubation period in the one monkey exposed to the virus of kuru was 36 months; that in the two monkeys exposed to the virus of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was 23 and 27 months, respectively; and that in the two monkeys exposed to the virus of scrapie was 25 and 32 months, respectively. Careful physical examination of the buccal cavities of all of the monkeys failed to reveal signs or oral lesions. One additional monkey similarly exposed to kuru has remained asymptomatic during the 39 months that it has been under observation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=6997404&dopt=Abstract


TSS


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## Eastern Yooper (Nov 12, 2000)

Terry, I appreciate the time you put into this forum providing information on CWD. With that in mind, _please_ don't take this the wrong way:

You might consider doing less cut-n-paste on your posts; it tends to make them too long and much of it is filled with scientific mumbo-jumbo that makes it difficult for simpletons like me to understand.

As a suggestion, maybe you could summarize in your own words what a particular article is about, and then provide a link to the URL.

Thanks again for the info you provide to the forum!


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## bearwalker128 (Jul 2, 2003)

Terry. I thought that the information that you had given was in a word..OUTSTANDING.............It was highly nformative and should be read and understood by everyone that has some interest in this CWD. What they are not saying is that this little "prion" is something that we have not really observed before. Its activities in the DNA are like attempting to explain a virus to someone from the 1800 era. We do not know for sure. What we may find interesting is that it seems to infect about 33 percent at this time once exposed. If the meat is infected there is no way it can be removed. We have never seen anything like this at this point and as of yet we do not have the science to fully understand it,let alone know what it actually is. Stay safe..............King (I am lucky in that I have several close friends that that are aquainted with the CDC on a personal level ,and the aspects of this prion on the mitochondrial DNA)


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## Neal (Mar 20, 2001)

Welcome to the site Bearwalker, It appears from your background you could be a real contributor to this forum.

I look forward to reading your posts.

Neal


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