Discovery of CWD in Missouri Reinforces Need for Vigilance in Texas

News Release Media Contact: Steve Lightfoot, 512-389-4701, steve.lightfoot@tpwd.state.tx.us

Oct. 28, 2011

Discovery of CWD in Missouri Reinforces Need for Vigilance in Texas

AUSTIN – The recent discovery of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a captive deer in Missouri underscores the need for vigilance in monitoring whitetails and taking action when questionable deer are discovered in Texas captive breeding facilities.

The animal that tested positive for CWD was a captive white-tailed deer inspected as part of Missouri’s CWD surveillance and testing program. Preliminary tests were conducted by the USDA National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and a “tested positive” result was disclosed last week.

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has investigated several deer smuggling cases involving whitetails brought into the state from several states where CWD has been confirmed, including Missouri.

“This is why we banned importation of deer from out of state and why we continue to monitor for illegal activity,” said Carter Smith, Executive Director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

In February 2010 a case of CWD was confirmed in Linn County, Missouri, on a captive hunting preserve operated by the same entity, Heartland Wildlife Ranches, LLC. The Linn County facility was depopulated and no further infection was identified at that facility. The current case was identified through increased surveillance required by the management plan implemented from the previous CWD incident.

Since TPWD implemented a CWD surveillance initiative 10 years ago, more than 35,000 deer have been tested in Texas; the results to date have all come back “not detected.”

“The absence of any disease findings is by no means a reason to stop testing,” Smith said. “The best measures we can take are proactive ones, and our goal is to keep CWD out of the state at all costs.”

CWD is a fatal disease of North American elk and deer, including white-tailed deer and mule deer. There is no indication that CWD in deer can lead to disease in native livestock or people. Wildlife officials regard prevention as the primary and most effective tool to combat CWD. Once established in a wild population, diseases are extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible, to eradicate.

TPWD has stepped up epidemiological investigations involving questionable deer held illegally in Texas with input and assistance from representatives of the Texas Animal Health Commission, Texas Wildlife Association, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Texas Deer Association, private veterinarians and other stakeholders.

“We take disease issues very seriously because of the potential impacts to Texas’ natural resources and the multi-million dollar hunting and deer breeding industries,” Smith said. “TPWD works collaboratively with deer breeders and other deer stakeholders to develop and implement rules to minimize the risk of CWD in Texas.”

The implications from a CWD outbreak in Texas’ internationally recognized white-tailed deer population, both free-ranging and captive, would be significant. Deer hunting is an important cultural and recreational component of Texas lifestyle, pursued annually by more than 600,000 sportsmen, and has an economic impact to the state in excess of $2.2 billion a year, according to published reports. In addition, studies show deer breeding activities have an economic impact in Texas of about $650 million annually.

CWD was originally described in captive animals 35 years ago in Colorado. However, over the last five years, the fatal disease has been detected in free-ranging and captive cervids in several surrounding states and Canada. The Missouri discovery places CWD in 20 states and Canadian provinces.

The general deer hunting season in Texas opens Nov. 5 and TPWD biologists will be at locker plants and processing facilities collecting voluntarily-submitted hunter harvested deer tissue samples for CWD testing. Hunters can also contact their local TPWD wildlife biologist if they would like to offer samples for testing. A contact list of TPWD biologists can be found online at

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/land/technical_guidance/biologists/.


http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/newsmedia/releases/?req=20111028a




"Discovery of CWD in Missouri Reinforces Need for Vigilance in Texas"



SO TRUE !


please see ;



Wednesday, January 5, 2011


ENLARGING SPECTRUM OF PRION-LIKE DISEASES Prusiner Colby et al 2011 Prions

David W. Colby1,* and Stanley B. Prusiner1,2

+ Author Affiliations

1Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143 2Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94143 Correspondence: stanley@ind.ucsf.edu



SNIP...



Greetings,

I believe the statement and quote below is incorrect ;

"CWD has been transmitted to cattle after intracerebral inoculation, although the infection rate was low (4 of 13 animals [Hamir et al. 2001]). This finding raised concerns that CWD prions might be transmitted to cattle grazing in contaminated pastures."

Please see ;

Within 26 months post inoculation, 12 inoculated animals had lost weight, revealed abnormal clinical signs, and were euthanatized. Laboratory tests revealed the presence of a unique pattern of the disease agent in tissues of these animals. These findings demonstrate that when CWD is directly inoculated into the brain of cattle, 86% of inoculated cattle develop clinical signs of the disease.

http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=194089




"although the infection rate was low (4 of 13 animals [Hamir et al. 2001])."




shouldn't this be corrected, 86% is NOT a low rate. ...


kindest regards,


Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518



MARCH 1, 2011

UPDATED CORRESPONDENCE FROM AUTHORS OF THIS STUDY I.E. COLBY, PRUSINER ET AL, ABOUT MY CONCERNS OF THE DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THEIR FIGURES AND MY FIGURES OF THE STUDIES ON CWD TRANSMISSION TO CATTLE ;


----- Original Message -----

From: David Colby

To: flounder9@verizon.net

Cc: stanley@XXXXXXXX

Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 8:25 AM

Subject: Re: FW: re-Prions David W. Colby1,* and Stanley B. Prusiner1,2 + Author Affiliations

Dear Terry Singeltary,

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the review article Stanley Prusiner and I recently wrote for Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives. Dr. Prusiner asked that I reply to your message due to his busy schedule. We agree that the transmission of CWD prions to beef livestock would be a troubling development and assessing that risk is important. In our article, we cite a peer-reviewed publication reporting confirmed cases of laboratory transmission based on stringent criteria. The less stringent criteria for transmission described in the abstract you refer to lead to the discrepancy between your numbers and ours and thus the interpretation of the transmission rate. We stand by our assessment of the literature--namely that the transmission rate of CWD to bovines appears relatively low, but we recognize that even a low transmission rate could have important implications for public health and we thank you for bringing attention to this matter.

Warm Regards, David Colby

--

David Colby, PhDAssistant ProfessorDepartment of Chemical EngineeringUniversity of Delaware



====================END...TSS==============



SNIP...SEE FULL TEXT ;



http://betaamyloidcjd.blogspot.com/2011/01/enlarging-spectrum-of-prion-like.html




"CWD is not known to affect people, and has not been detected in Texas to date." ???


key word is 'to date'.



please see ;



EFSA Journal 2011 The European Response to BSE: A Success Story

This is an interesting editorial about the Mad Cow Disease debacle, and it's ramifications that will continue to play out for decades to come ;

Monday, October 10, 2011

EFSA Journal 2011 The European Response to BSE: A Success Story

snip...

EFSA and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) recently delivered a scientific opinion on any possible epidemiological or molecular association between TSEs in animals and humans (EFSA Panel on Biological Hazards (BIOHAZ) and ECDC, 2011). This opinion confirmed Classical BSE prions as the only TSE agents demonstrated to be zoonotic so far but the possibility that a small proportion of human cases so far classified as "sporadic" CJD are of zoonotic origin could not be excluded. Moreover, transmission experiments to non-human primates suggest that some TSE agents in addition to Classical BSE prions in cattle (namely L-type Atypical BSE, Classical BSE in sheep, transmissible mink encephalopathy (TME) and ***chronic wasting disease (CWD) agents) might have zoonotic potential.

snip...


http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/e991.htm?emt=1




http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/doc/e991.pdf



see follow-up here about North America BSE Mad Cow TSE prion risk factors, and the ever emerging strains of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy in many species here in the USA, including humans ;


http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2011/10/efsa-journal-2011-european-response-to.html




Monday, June 27, 2011

Zoonotic Potential of CWD: Experimental Transmissions to Non-Human Primates

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/06/zoonotic-potential-of-cwd-experimental.html




Thursday, May 26, 2011

Travel History, Hunting, and Venison Consumption Related to Prion Disease Exposure, 2006-2007 FoodNet Population Survey

Journal of the American Dietetic Association Volume 111, Issue 6 , Pages 858-863, June 2011.


http://transmissiblespongiformencephalopathy.blogspot.com/2011/05/travel-history-hunting-and-venison.html




http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/





UPDATED DATA ON 2ND CWD STRAIN

Wednesday, September 08, 2010

CWD PRION CONGRESS SEPTEMBER 8-11 2010

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2010/09/cwd-prion-2010.html




Friday, October 21, 2011

Chronic Wasting Disease Found in Captive Deer Missouri

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/10/chronic-wasting-disease-found-in.html




Tuesday, October 25, 2011

CWD Update 102 October 20, 2011

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/10/cwd-update-102-october-20-2011.html




Friday, October 28, 2011

CWD Herd Monitoring Program to be Enforced Jan. 2012 TEXAS

http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2011/10/cwd-herd-monitoring-program-to-be.html




TSS