Saturday, July 07, 2012

TEXAS Animal Health Commission Accepting Comments on Chronic Wasting Disease Rule Proposal

Subject: TX Animal Health Commission Accepting Comments on Chronic Wasting Disease Rule Proposal
Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) NEWS RELEASE
Texas Animal Health Commission
"Serving Texas Animal Agriculture Since 1893"
Dee Ellis, DVM, MPA ● Executive Director
P.O. Box l2966 ● Austin, Texas 78711 ● (800) 550-8242 http://www.tahc.state.tx.us
For more information contact the Communication & PR Dept. at 1-800-550-0710 or at bonnie.ramirez@tahc.state.tx.us
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 6, 2012
TAHC Now Accepting Comments on Chronic Wasting Disease Rule Proposal
AUSTIN - The Texas Animal Health Commission (Commission) is currently accepting public comments on a rule proposed at its June 5 meeting to amend Chapter 40, entitled "Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)". The proposed rule will affect certain cervid species and delineates movement restriction zones and other necessary disease management practices related to the control of CWD in far west Texas.
CWD has been discovered in mule deer in the Hueco Mountains of southern New Mexico, very near the Texas state line. The potential risk of animals moving back and forth between Texas and New Mexico has raised significant concern among wildlife and animal health officials that the disease is also present in deer living in the Texas portion of the same mountain range. Currently CWD is not known to exist anywhere in Texas, but has been found in 16 other states in free ranging and/or captive cervid herds.
CWD is not known to affect people, but a number of cervid species are susceptible. Besides mule deer, other susceptible species include white-tailed deer, elk, red deer, sika deer and moose. The progressively fatal disease is most commonly exhibited by chronic weight loss, and abnormal behavior such as disorientation. Prions are the infectious agent of CWD, and can be found throughout the body of an infected animal. The prions are present in the body fluids of infected animals, and can be shed onto the soil where they may remain viable and able to infect other susceptible animals for many years. For this reason the proposed TAHC rules apply to land as well as animals within the proposed zones.
The proposed rules are intended to define susceptible species, establish boundaries for a High Risk Zone (HRZ) and Containment Zone (CZ), restrict movement within the zones, establish surveillance systems within the zones, and also address requirements for new or existing herds ability to gain CWD monitored status designations by TAHC. Counties affected by the proposed rules include El Paso, and portions of Hudspeth, Culberson and Reeves.
The proposed TAHC rules apply to the non-indigenous species of cervid species of Texas under its jurisdiction including moose, red deer, elk and Sika. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) is also proposing similar rules for the cervid species it regulates (indigenous to Texas), including white-tailed deer and mule deer.
The TAHC rule proposals have a comment period of 30 days. They may be commented on until 5 p.m. on Monday, August 6, 2012.
The Commission is also proposing amendments to the following:
Chapter 43, entitled "Tuberculosis" Chapter 45, entitled "Reportable Diseases" Chapter 49, entitled "Equine, Piroplasmosis"
A detailed explanation of each rule proposal, including the CWD rule can be found on the TAHC web site at http://www.tahc.state.tx.us/regs/proposals.html .
Comments on the TAHC's proposed regulations must be submitted in writing to Carol Pivonka, Texas Animal Health Commission, 2105 Kramer Lane, Austin, Texas 78758, by fax at (512) 719-0721 or by e-mail to comments@tahc.state.tx.us .
Founded in 1893, the Texas Animal Health Commission works to protect the health of all Texas livestock, including: cattle, swine, poultry, sheep, goats, equine animals, and exotic livestock.
###
Rules proposed at the June 5, 2012 Commission meeting
Chapter 40, CWD - Create CWD movement restriction zone(s) in the Trans Pecos Region
View
Comment
comments@tahc.state.tx.us
The Texas Animal Health Commission (Commission) proposes new §40.6, CWD Movement Restriction Zone, in Chapter 40, which is entitled “Chronic Wasting Disease”. The new section will create Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) movement restriction zone(s) in the Trans Pecos Region.
There is a task force comprised of members of affected deer and exotic livestock associations, private veterinary practitioners, and wildlife biologists who assist the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and Commission staff in developing a response plan for CWD detected in mule deer harvested in New Mexico within 1-2 miles of the Texas border. They recently met and provided both agencies with recommendations on a strategy to address the risk of exposure of CWD to susceptible species in Texas. The recommendations follow the creation of CWD Movement Restriction Zone(s) for the area with restrictions put in place to protect against the exposure and spread of CWD from New Mexico. These recommendations are being taken in a coordinated effort by both TPWD and the Commission.
It was recently disclosed that through CWD sampling efforts of New Mexico Game and Fish personnel that CWD has been detected in mule deer in the southern Sacramento Mountains and northern Hueco Mountains, in southern New Mexico. While sample sizes are very small, it seems that the CWD prevalence may be quite high in that location. Several of the animals sampled were located in close proximity to the Texas border. This is significant for the state of Texas, considering basic biology and movement patterns of susceptible species located there such as mule deer and elk indicate that the animals may be moving back and forth between Texas and New Mexico.
Prions are found ubiquitously throughout the body of an infected animal, and can be shed onto soil, where they may remain viable and able to infect other susceptible animals for many years. Suspected additional susceptible species besides mule deer, white tail deer and elk, include red deer and sika deer. There is still no evidence that humans or domestic livestock can be infected with CWD.
Deer populations in other states where CWD prevalence exceeds 40% have experienced significant (>45%) population declines. As the prevalence rates increase and geographic distribution has expanded in other states, hunters are more likely to alter hunting behaviors which may include avoiding areas with high CWD prevalence. This could have an adverse economic impact on local communities dependent on hunting revenue, and could affect TPWD efforts to manage cervid populations through hunter harvest.
Considering the seemingly high CWD prevalence rate in the Sacramento and Hueco Mountains of New Mexico, CWD may be well established in the population and in the environment in Texas at this time. The current area of concern was delineated as all land west of the Pecos River and IH 20, and north of IH 10 to Ft. Hancock, and all land west and north of Ft. Hancock and the Containment Zone (CZ) was delineated as all land west of HWY 62-180 and HWY 54, and north of IH 10 to Ft. Hancock, and all land west and north of Ft. Hancock. Data regarding mule deer population parameters and mule deer movements, knowledge on elk movements, and the geography and habitat types of the area were considered in the delineation of these zones.
snip...
Considering the seemingly high CWD prevalence rate in the Sacramento and Hueco Mountains of New Mexico, CWD may be well established in the population and in the environment in Texas at this time. The current area of concern was delineated as all land west of the Pecos River and IH 20, and north of IH 10 to Ft. Hancock, and all land west and north of Ft. Hancock and the Containment Zone (CZ) was delineated as all land west of HWY 62-180 and HWY 54, and north of IH 10 to Ft. Hancock, and all land west and north of Ft. Hancock. Data regarding mule deer population parameters and mule deer movements, knowledge on elk movements, and the geography and habitat types of the area were considered in the delineation of these zones.
snip...
Greetings TAHC et al,
I would kindly, once again, like to comment on the importance of testing for CWD. I tried to warn you in 2001, again in 2005, 2006, again later in 2011, 2012, and now as you stated here ;
There is a task force comprised of members of affected deer and exotic livestock associations, private veterinary practitioners, and wildlife biologists who assist the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) and Commission staff in developing a response plan for CWD detected in mule deer harvested in New Mexico within 1-2 miles of the Texas border. They recently met and provided both agencies with recommendations on a strategy to address the risk of exposure of CWD to susceptible species in Texas. The recommendations follow the creation of CWD Movement Restriction Zone(s) for the area with restrictions put in place to protect against the exposure and spread of CWD from New Mexico. These recommendations are being taken in a coordinated effort by both TPWD and the Commission.
It was recently disclosed that through CWD sampling efforts of New Mexico Game and Fish personnel that CWD has been detected in mule deer in the southern Sacramento Mountains and northern Hueco Mountains, in southern New Mexico. While sample sizes are very small, it seems that the CWD prevalence may be quite high in that location. Several of the animals sampled were located in close proximity to the Texas border. This is significant for the state of Texas, considering basic biology and movement patterns of susceptible species located there such as mule deer and elk indicate that the animals may be moving back and forth between Texas and New Mexico.
Considering the seemingly high CWD prevalence rate in the Sacramento and Hueco Mountains of New Mexico, CWD may be well established in the population and in the environment in Texas at this time. The current area of concern was delineated as all land west of the Pecos River and IH 20, and north of IH 10 to Ft. Hancock, and all land west and north of Ft. Hancock and the Containment Zone (CZ) was delineated as all land west of HWY 62-180 and HWY 54, and north of IH 10 to Ft. Hancock, and all land west and north of Ft. Hancock. Data regarding mule deer population parameters and mule deer movements, knowledge on elk movements, and the geography and habitat types of the area were considered in the delineation of these zones.
The fact of the matter is, CWD has been waltzing across Texas for over a decade from the WSMR at New Mexico border, and the state of Texas, in my opinion, knew this. in my opinion, the state of Texas purposely tested the least amount of cervids in that area for years, why, they knew it was there, and I warned you of this in 2001, 2005, and year after year after year. now, it’s too late. Game farms and ranchers i.e. high fence operations here in Texas are out of control in my opinion, with the TAHC not having a clue as to the infection rate of CWD (if any) at these high fence operations. it has been proven in the past, they are nothing but a petri dish for CWD infection rates, with the highest infection rate in Wisconsin at the Buckhorn Flats Game farm toping out at 80%. TAHC actions now on CWD, as I finally applaud them, may well be much too late, and not near enough. I pray that I am wrong. However, because of this, I think the movement restrictions on cervids in Texas should include every region in the state of Texas, until a very large cwd sampling over a period of 7 to 10 years. ...
here are a few of my pleas to the TAHC about CWD waltzing into Texas for over a decade ;
2001 - 2002
Subject: Texas Borders Reopened for Importing Black-Tailed Deer & Elk New Entry Regulations in Effect $ CWD TESTING STATISTICS ?
Date: Fri, 6 Sep 2002 17:18:16 –0700
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
To: BSE-L@uni-karlsruhe.de
######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #########
NEWS RELEASE
Texas Animal Health Commission
Box l2966 * Austin, Texas 78711 * (800) 550-8242 * FAX (512) 719-0719
Linda Logan, DVM, PhD * Executive Director
For info, contact Carla Everett, information officer, at 1-800-550-8242, ext. 710, or ceverett@tahc.state.tx.us
snip...
TEXAS OLD STATISTICS BELOW FOR PAST CWD TESTING;
Subject: CWD testing in Texas
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 19:45:14 –0500
From: Kenneth Waldrup
To: flounder@wt.net
CC: mcoats@tahc.state.tx.us
Dear Dr. Singletary,
In Fiscal Year 2001, seven deer from Texas were tested by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) for CWD (5 fallow deer and 2 white-tailed deer). In Fiscal Year 2002, seven elk from Texas were tested at NVSL (no deer). During these two years, an additional six elk and one white-tailed deer were tested at the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL). In Fiscal Year 2002, four white-tailed deer (free-ranging clinical suspects) and at least eight other white-tailed deer have been tested at TVMDL. One elk has been tested at NVSL. All of these animals have been found negative for CWD. Dr. Jerry Cooke of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department also has records of 601 clinically ill white-tailed deer which were necropsied at Texas A&M during the late 1960's and early 1970's, and no spongiform encepalopathies were noted.
Thank you for your consideration.
Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD Texas Animal Health Commission
========================
TEXAS CWD STATUS
Captive Cervids
There have been no reported CWD infections of captive elk or deer in Texas. There is currently no mandatory surveillance program for susceptible cervids kept on game farms, although, there has been voluntary surveillance since 1999, which requires owners of participating herds to maintain an annual herd inventory and submit samples for all mortalities of animals over 16 months of age.
snip...
SO, i thought i would just see where these Ecoregions were, and just how the CWD testing was distributed. YOU would think that with the cluster of CWD bordering TEXAS at the WPMR in NM, you would have thought this would be where the major CWD testing samples were to have been taken? wrong! let's have a look at the sample testing. here is map of CWD in NM WPMR bordering TEXAS;
NEW MEXICO 7 POSITIVE CWD WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE MAP
NEXT, let's have a look at the overall distribution of CWD in Free-Ranging Cervids and see where the CWD cluster in NM WSMR borders TEXAS;
Current Distribution of Chronic Wasting Disease in Free-Ranging Cervids
NOW, the MAP of the Exoregion where the samples were taken to test for CWD;
CWD SURVEILLANCE SAMPLE SUBMISSIONS TEXAS
Ecoregions of TEXAS
IF you look at the area around the NM WSMR where the CWD cluster was and where it borders TEXAS, that ecoregion is called Trans Pecos region. Seems if my Geography and my Ciphering is correct ;-) that region only tested 55% of it's goal. THE most important area on the MAP and they only test some 96 samples, this in an area that has found some 7 positive animals? NOW if we look at the only other border where these deer from NM could cross the border into TEXAS, this area is called the High Plains ecoregion, and again, we find that the sampling for CWD was pathetic. HERE we find that only 9% of it's goal of CWD sampling was met, only 16 samples were tested from some 175 that were suppose to be sampled.
AS i said before;
> SADLY, they have not tested enough from the total population to
> know if CWD is in Texas or not.
BUT now, I will go one step further and state categorically that they are not trying to find it. just the opposite it seems, they are waiting for CWD to find them, as with BSE/TSE in cattle, and it will eventually...
snip...end...TSS
===============================
2005
SEE MAP OF CWD ON THE BORDER OF NEW MEXICO VERY CLOSE TO TEXAS ;
NO update on CWD testing in Texas, New Mexico that i could find. I have inquired about it though, no reply yet...
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: CWD testing to date TEXAS ?
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 12:26:20 –0500
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
To: kristen.everett@tpwd.state.tx.us
Hello Mrs. Everett,
I am most curious about the current status on CWD testing in Texas. could you please tell me what the current and past testing figures are to date and what geographical locations these tests have been in. good bust on the illegal deer trapping case. keep up the good work there.........
thank you, with kindest regards,
Terry S. Singeltary Sr. P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: CWD testing in New Mexico
Date: Mon, 09 May 2005 14:39:18 –0500
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
To: ispa@state.nm.us
Greetings,
I am most curious of the current and past CWD testing in New Mexico, and there geographical locations...
thank you,
Terry S. Singeltary SR. CJD Watch
#################### https://lists.aegee.org/bse-l.html ####################
2006
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr." flounder9@VERIZON.NET
To: BSE-L@aegee.org
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 1:47 PM
Subject: CWD in New Mexico 35 MILES FROM TEXAS BORDER and low testing sampling figures -- what gives TAHC ???
Subject: CWD in New Mexico 35 MILES FROM TEXAS BORDER and low testing sampling figures -- what gives TAHC ???
Date: December 23, 2006 at 11:25 am PST
Greetings BSE-L members,
i never know if i am going crazy or just more of the same BSe. several years ago i brought up the fact to the TAHC that CWD was literally at the Texas borders and that the sample size for cwd testing was no where near enough in the location of that zone bordering NM. well, i just wrote them another letter questioning this again on Dec. 14, 2006 (see below) and showed them two different pdf maps, one referencing this url, which both worked just fine then. since then, i have NOT received a letter from them answering my question, and the url for the map i used as reference is no longer working? i had reference this map several times from the hunter-kill cwd sampling as of 31 August 2005 pdf which NO longer works now??? but here are those figures for that zone bordering NM, for those that were questioning the url. the testing samples elsewhere across Texas where much much more than that figure in the zone bordering NM where CWD has been documented bordering TEXAS, near the White Sands Missile Range. SO, why was the Texas hunter-kill cwd sampling as of 31 August 2005 document removed from the internet??? you know, this reminds me of the infamous TEXAS MAD COW that i documented some 7 or 8 months before USDA et al documented it, when the TAHC accidentally started ramping up for the announcement on there web site, then removed it (see history at bottom). i am not screaming conspiracy here, but confusious is confused again on the ciphering there using for geographical distribution of cwd tissue sample size survey, IF they are serious about finding CWD in TEXAS. common sense would tell you if cwd is 35 miles from the border, you would not run across state and have your larger samples there, and least samples 35 miles from where is what found..........daaa..........TSS
THEN NOTICE CWD sample along that border in TEXAS, Three Year Summary of Hunter-Kill CWD sampling as of 31 August 2005 of only 191 samples, then compare to the other sample locations ;
TPWD has been conducting surveys of hunter-kill animals since 2002 and has collected more than 7300 samples (as of 31 August 2005). In total, there have been over 9400 samples, both hunter-kill and private samples, tested in Texas to date, and no positives have been found.
SO, out of a total of 9,400 samples taken for CWD surveillance in TEXAS since 2002 of both hunter-kill and private kill, ONLY 191 samples have been taken in the most likely place one would find CWD i.e. the border where CWD has been documented at TEXAS and New Mexico
latest map NM cwd old data
CWD in New Mexico ;
What is the Department doing to prevent the spread of CWD?
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) was recently detected in a mule deer from Unit 34. Until 2005, CWD had only been found in Unit 19. With this discovery, the Department will increase its surveillance of deer and elk harvested in Units 29, 30 and 34.
Lymph nodes and/or brain stems from every harvested deer and brain stems from all elk taken in Unit 34 will be sampled.
snip...
CWD SURVEILLANCE TEXAS
IMPLEMENTATION OF A GEOGRAPHICALLY FOCUSED CWD SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM FOR FREE-RANGING CERVIDS
A geographically-focused free-ranging cervid Monitoring Program was implemented during the fall 2002 deer-hunting season. Brain stem samples from hunter-killed deer will be obtained from TPWD Wildlife Management Areas (WMA), State Parks, and where otherwise available with hunter and/or landowner permission, from deer taken on private land. Volume 1, Sixth Edition of United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Veterinary Services, Regulatory Statistics (Appendix D1) indicates that 148 samples is sufficient to detect disease at two per-cent prevalence, regardless of the population size. Therefore the goal is to acquire 148 samples from each of the State's ten ecoregions provided adequate sampling distribution is achieved across each ecoregion. The five year 2002 -2006, goal is to cumulatively collect 459 samples from each of the ten ecoregions. The cumulative sample would be used statistically to detect CWD at one per-cent prevalence level with 99 per-cent confidence. However, funding from APHIS/USDA could provide the necessary funds for sampling at the one per-cent prevalence level each year. TAHC conducted a risk assessment of counties where deer and elk have been imported and where high densities of free-ranging deer occur. The assessment was conducted for USDA funding consideration. The risk assessment was based on limited number of criteria. Since CWD could potentially occur anywhere in Texas, monitoring efforts would be focused to achieve a stratified sampling scheme across each ecoregion of the State.
Confidentiality laws restrict the type of data TPWD personnel can collect as it relates to a specific parcel of land. Therefore, personnel will ensure that no property specific information is collected (i.e. ranch name or exact location) without the landowner's written permission. The following are guidelines for data and sample collection distributed to TPWD personnel prior to sample collection:
A Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL) Accession Form must be submitted with brain stem samples.
The most important items to be filled out are the TPWD employee name, address and phone number, and "Patient/Deer ID". County of Kill can be recorded on the bottom of the form, but DO NOT report any information that identifies the specific parcel of land.
The "Patient/Deer ID" number MUST BE specific to the field data sheet the employee is using to record data.
Specific CWD field data sheets will not be provided, as current field data sheets (i.e. Age/Weight Antler Data Sheets, Hunter Check Station Data Sheets, etc.) will be appropriate in most cases. Field staff may produce their own CWD data sheet if necessary.
The field data sheet must contain:
Employee Name
Sample Number (same as Patient/Deer ID on TVMDL Accession Form
Sample Date
Deer Age
Deer Sex
County of Kill
Hunter Name
Hunting License Number
Ranch name or tract name/location ONLY with landowner permission. Should a CWD positive be detected, TAHC will use hunter contact information to conduct CWD investigation under their regulatory authority. Make sure the container containing the brain stem sample is legibly identified with the sample number, deer age and sex, county of kill and date. Although the sample number is all that is needed, additional information will help resolve any problems should batches of samples be combined.
Should a landowner retain deer heads for our sampling purposes, remind the landowner to issue the hunters a proof of sex document as provided for in TAHC 65.10 (c). In addition, a Wildlife resource document (PWD 905) must accompany the head until the carcass reaches a final destination and finally processed.
Samples MAY NOT be taken from legally harvested deer without the hunter's consent.
ACTIONS SHOULD A CWD POSITIVE BE DETECTED
Should sampling detect a CWD positive animal, TAHC and TPWD would activate the Media Response Plan (Appendix F). TAHC and TPWD would immediately begin review of the information at hand and determine the action to be taken within the Response Plan (Appendix C.) The first action should be to inform landowners adjacent to the property containing the CWD positive and hold a meeting with advisory committees and affected landowner to discuss plans for secondary sampling. Planning for secondary sampling, investigating movements of deer into and away from property for further actions would then be the next step. The secondary sampling is critical for determining distribution and prevalence of the disease.
As distribution and prevalence is being determined, information review and discussions with TPWD advisory committees (e.g., Private Lands Advisory Board, Hunting Advisory Committee, White-tailed Deer Advisory Committee etc.) and landowners would take place in order to determine the appropriate management action to be taken.
and the discovery of several CWD positive mule deer in New Mexico, approximately 35 miles north of the Texas border were well out of the known boundaries of the disease.
The disease prevalence appears to be increasing in localized areas, although it is not clear whether this is due to increased incidence, or increased surveillance, reporting, and testing. Information from states with direct experience in managing CWD is being used for developing Texas plans as we learn from their experiences.
TPWD and TAHC are developing stepped up targeted and geographically-focused surveillance plans to monitor free-ranging deer for the presence of the disease and a rapid response plan to guide both TPWD and TAHC should CWD be detected in the State. TPWD and TAHC are also evaluating cervid management laws, rules, and policies for free ranging and scientific breeder permitted cervids under their authority to identify issues and potential weaknesses related to disease management. In these efforts, TPWD and TAHC will work with other agencies and organizations responsible for or are concerned about cervid disease management in an attempt to ensure comprehensive approaches to effective management of CWD risks (see Appendix C: Importation of Susceptible Cervids).
----- Original Message -----
From: Terry S. Singeltary Sr.
To: thurmanf@tahc.state.tx.us
Sent: Thursday, December 14, 2006 9:52 PM
Subject: cwd at Texas border and low sampling figures ???
Greetings TAHC,
can someone please explain to me any reasoning at all for the very low sampling for CWD which have been taken where CWD is literally right at the steps of one of Texas borders, but yet across the state elsewhere, the numbers for testing increases ???
i do not understand the low sampling for cwd size where it is at our borders, compared to the highter numbers elsewhere???
see Texas hunter kill sample for CWD to Aug 31, 2005
see map where CWD has been documented at Texas border in free ranging deer and elk
kind regards,
Terry
Subject: CWD 3 NEW CASES SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO
Date: July 10, 2006 at 8:51 am PST
New Mexico Department of Game and Fish
Media contact: Dan Williams, (505) 476-8004
Public contact: (505) 476-8000
dan.williams@state.nm.us
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, JULY 7, 2006:
3 SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO DEER TEST POSITIVE FOR CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE
SANTA FE – Three deer in southern New Mexico have tested positive for chronic wasting disease, bringing the total number of confirmed CWD-infected deer in the state to 15 since the first infected deer was discovered in 2002.
The Department received test results Wednesday from the state Veterinary Diagnostic Services laboratory in Albuquerque that two wild deer captured near the White Sands Missile Range headquarters east of Las Cruces had tested positive for chronic wasting disease. A third wild deer captured in the small community of Timberon in the southern Sacramento Mountains also tested positive for the disease.
The discoveries of the infected deer were part of the Department's ongoing efforts to monitor the disease, which to date has been confined to the southern Sacramento Mountains southeast of Cloudcroft and areas surrounding the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces. Two wild elk from the southern Sacramento Mountains tested positive for the disease in December 2005.
Chronic wasting disease is a fatal neurological illness that afflicts deer, elk and moose. There is no evidence of CWD being transmitted to humans or livestock. The disease causes animals to become emaciated, display abnormal behavior and lose control of bodily functions. To date, it has been found in captive and wild deer, elk and moose in eight states and two Canadian provinces.
For more information about CWD in New Mexico and how hunters can assist in research and prevention, please visit the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish Web site, www.wildlife.state.nm.us . More information about CWD also can be found on the Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance site at www.cwd-info.org/ .
###
SEE MAP NM
SEE SAMPLING MAP TEXAS
CWD Sampling Maps
Three Year Summary of Hunter-Kill CWD Sampling (as of August 31, 2005)
CWD Sampling Maps
Three Year Summary of Hunter-Kill CWD Sampling (as of August 31, 2005)
USDA CWD Maps
March 2006 — Current Distribution of CWD
TAHC CWD Monitoring Program Information
CWD Sample Submission and Costs
2006 Factsheet For Producers Enrolling in the Complete Herd Monitoring Program
USDA CWD Maps
March 2006 — Current Distribution of CWD
TAHC CWD Monitoring Program Information
CWD Sample Submission and Costs
2006 Factsheet For Producers Enrolling in the Complete Herd Monitoring Program
----- Original Message -----
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
To:
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 6:51 PM
Subject: CWD TWO NEW CASES NEAR WHITE SANDS MISSLE RANGE NEW MEXICO
##################### Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #####################
From: TSS ()
Subject: CWD TWO NEW CASES NEAR WHITE SANDS MISSLE RANGE NEW MEXICO
Date: June 27, 2005 at 4:43 pm PST
New Mexico Department of Game and Fish
Contact: Dan Williams, (505) 476-8004
dan.williams@state.nm.us
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, JUNE 24, 2005:
TWO MULE DEER TEST POSITIVE FOR CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE
ANGLER LANDS STATE RECORD BLUE CATFISH AT ELEPHANT BUTTE LAKE
TWO MULE DEER TEST POSITIVE FOR CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE
SANTA FE – Two mule deer captured in the Organ Mountains as part of an ongoing research project near White Sands Missile Range have tested positive for chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal neurological disease that attacks the brains of infected deer and elk, the Department of Game and Fish announced.
The number of confirmed CWD cases in New Mexico now stands at 11 since 2002, when the disease was first confirmed in a deer found near the eastern foothills of the Organ Mountains. All 11 CWD-infected deer were found in the same general area of southern New Mexico. The origin of the disease in New Mexico remains unknown.
The carcasses of the infected deer will be incinerated, said Kerry Mower, the Department’s lead wildlife disease biologist.
Chronic wasting disease causes animals to become emaciated, display abnormal behavior, lose bodily functions and die. The disease has been found in wild deer and elk, and in captive deer and elk, in eight states and two
Canadian provinces. There currently is no evidence of CWD being transmitted to humans or livestock.
Mower said the most recent CWD-positive deer showed no obvious physical signs of having the disease. They were captured in April 2005 and tested as part of a 3-year-old research project studying deer population dynamics in southern New Mexico. More than 140 deer have been captured alive and tested for the study, in which researchers hope to find the cause of a 10-year decline in the area deer population. Study participants include the Department of Game and Fish, the U.S. Army at White Sands Missile Range and Fort Bliss, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Geological Survey at New Mexico State University, and San Andres National Wildlife Refuge.
Hunters can assist the Department in its CWD research and prevention efforts by bringing their fresh, legally
harvested deer or elk head to an area office, where officers will remove the brain stem for testing. Participants will be eligible for drawings for an oryx hunt on White Sands Missile Range and a trophy elk hunt on the Valle Vidal. For more information about the drawing and chronic wasting disease, visit the Department web site at
www.wildlife.state.nm.us.
SEE MAP ;
Greetings list members,
I am deeply concerned with these CWD mad deer so close to the Texas border. WHAT keeps them from crossing the border to Texas ??? IF these illegal aliens can so easily cross our borders, why not these infected deer? maybe we should get these minute men to start watching for mad deer coming in to Texas from New Mexico.
I mentioned my concerns several other times before;
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Current status of CWD testing in Texas
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 09:09:47 –0500
From: "kschwaus"
To:
Mr. Singeltary,
I was asked to provide you with the following information. If you have any other questions regarding CWD sampling in Texas, please do not hesitate to give me a call. My office number is below.
Below I have included a chart showing CWD samples that have been tested since the fall of 2002 through the present at the eco-region level. The second chart shows the totals on a given year. The unknown location samples come from private individuals sending in samples directly to the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab (TVMDL). Due to the confidentiality laws that the TVMDL operates under, they are unable to provide TPWD with the location of those samples.
Region Population Estimate
Sampling from Fall 2002 to Present
Pineywoods
502,521
975
Gulf Prairie
90,664
441
Post Oak Savannah
291,119
1146
Black Land Prairies
54,505
153
Cross Timbers
441,031
1015
Edwards Plateau
1,608,390
1618
South Texas Plains
500,183
1253
Rolling Plains
231,358
352
High Plains
49,981
81
Trans Pecos
148,174
173
Unknown Location
1,896
Total
3,917,926
9,103
Samples Collected By
2002-03
2003-04
2004-Present
TPWD
1,722
2,955
2,540
Private (unknown location)
326
608
952
Total
2,048
3,563
3,492
Thank you,
Kevin Schwausch
Big Game Program Specialist
Texas Parks & Wildlife Department
PO Box 1394
Burnet, TX 78611
512-756-4476
===============================
I would like to thank Kevin and TPWD for there prompt reply with updated data.
I am still concerned about the Texas, New Mexico border and New Mexico's apparent lack of CWD testing updates. Makes one wonder about there CWD testing program. NO report/reply back from New Mexico about there CWD testing update yet. ...
TSS
===================
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: CWD SURVEILLANCE TEXAS UPDATE (kinda)
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 14:52:48 –0500
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy
To: BSE-L@aegee.org
snip...see full text ;
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2006 12:03:19 –0600
Reply-To: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group
Sender: Sustainable Agriculture Network Discussion Group
From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."
Subject: Fw: CWD in New Mexico 35 MILES FROM TEXAS BORDER and low testing sampling figures -- what gives TAHC ???
2011 - 2012
Friday, October 28, 2011
CWD Herd Monitoring Program to be Enforced Jan. 2012 TEXAS
Greetings TAHC et al,
A kind greetings from Bacliff, Texas.
In reply to ;
Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) Announcement October 27, 2011
I kindly submit the following ;
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
TAHC Modifies Entry Requirements Effective Immediately for Cervids DUE TO CWD
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 26, 2012
Texas Prepares for Chronic Wasting Disease CWD Possibility in Far West Texas
Monday, March 26, 2012
3 CASES OF CWD FOUND NEW MEXICO MULE DEER SEVERAL MILS FROM TEXAS BORDER
Saturday, June 09, 2012
USDA Establishes a Herd Certification Program for Chronic Wasting Disease in the United States
Thursday, May 31, 2012
CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD PRION2012 Aerosol, Inhalation transmission, Scrapie, cats, species barrier, burial, and more
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
Captive Deer Breeding Legislation Overwhelmingly Defeated During 2012 Legislative Session
Monday, June 11, 2012
OHIO Captive deer escapees and non-reporting
CWD has been identified in free-ranging cervids in 15 US states and 2 Canadian provinces and in ≈ 100 captive herds in 15 states and provinces and in South Korea (Figure 1, panel B).
SNIP...
Long-term effects of CWD on cervid populations and ecosystems remain unclear as the disease continues to spread and prevalence increases. In captive herds, CWD might persist at high levels and lead to complete herd destruction in the absence of human culling. Epidemiologic modeling suggests the disease could have severe effects on free-ranging deer populations, depending on hunting policies and environmental persistence (8,9). CWD has been associated with large decreases in free-ranging mule deer populations in an area of high CWD prevalence (Boulder, Colorado, USA) (5).
PLEASE STUDY THIS MAP, COMPARE FARMED CWD TO WILD CWD...TSS
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Occurrence, Transmission, and Zoonotic Potential of Chronic Wasting Disease
CDC Volume 18, Number 3—March 2012
CWD has been identified in free-ranging cervids in 15 US states and 2 Canadian provinces and in ≈100 captive herds in 15 states and provinces and in South Korea (Figure 1, panel B).
Thursday, February 09, 2012
50 GAME FARMS IN USA INFECTED WITH CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD WISCONSIN Almond Deer (Buckhorn Flats) Farm Update DECEMBER 2011
The CWD infection rate was nearly 80%, the highest ever in a North American captive herd.
RECOMMENDATION: That the Board approve the purchase of 80 acres of land for $465,000 for the Statewide Wildlife Habitat Program in Portage County and approve the restrictions on public use of the site.
snip...see full text and much more here ;
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE CWD WISCONSIN Almond Deer (Buckhorn Flats) Farm Update DECEMBER 2011
Monday, June 25, 2012
US Department of Agriculture ends funding for chronic wasting disease CWD
for all those game farmers that thought the USDA was the save all to the cervid game farming and ranching with CWD, instead of the DNR. please see ;


CWD TEXAS TAHC OLD FILE HISTORY



updated from some of my old files. ...


Subject: CWD SURVEILLANCE STATISTICS TEXAS (total testing figures less than 50 in two years)


Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 21:06:49 –0700


From: "Terry S. Singeltary Sr."


Reply-To: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy


To: BSE-L@uni-karlsruhe.de


######## Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy #########


greetings list members,


here are some figures on CWD testing in TEXAS...TSS


Dear Dr. Singletary,


In Fiscal Year 2001, seven deer from Texas were tested by the National Veterinary Services Laboratory (NVSL) for CWD (5 fallow deer and 2 white-tailed deer). In Fiscal Year 2002, seven elk from Texas were tested at NVSL (no deer). During these two years, an additional six elk and one white-tailed deer were tested at the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (TVMDL). In Fiscal Year 2002, four white-tailed deer (free-ranging clinical suspects) and at least eight other white-tailed deer have been tested at TVMDL. One elk has been tested at NVSL. All of these animals have been found negative for CWD. Dr. Jerry Cooke of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department also has records of 601 clinically ill white-tailed deer which were necropsied at Texas A&M during the late 1960's and early 1970's, and no spongiform encepalopathies were noted. Thank you for your consideration.


xxxxxxx


Texas Animal Health Commission


(personal communication...TSS)


Austin 8 news


snip...


"There's about 4 million deer in the state of Texas, and as a resource I think we need to be doing as much as we can to look for these diseases," said Doug Humphreys with Texas Parks and Wildlife. "Right now Texas is clear. We haven't found any, but that doesn't mean we don't look."




With approximately 4 million animals, Texas has the largest population of white-tailed deer in the nation. In addition, about 19,000 white-tailed deer and 17,000 elk are being held in private facilities. To know if CWD is present in captive herds, TPWD and Texas Animal Health Commission are working with breeders to monitor their herds.




How is it spread?


It is not known exactly how CWD is spread. It is believed that the agent responsible for the disease may be spread both directly (animal to animal contact) and indirectly (soil or other surface to animal). It is thought that the most common mode of transmission from an infected animal is via saliva, feces, and urine.




some surveillance?


beyond the _potential_ methods of transmissions above, why, not a single word of SRM of various TSE species in feed as a source?


it's a known fact they have been feeding the deer/elk the same stuff as cows here in USA.


and the oral route has been documented of CWD to mule deer fawns in lab studies.


not to say that other _potential_ transmission mechanisms are possible, but why over look the obvious?


TSS






From: Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD (host25-207.tahc.state.tx.us)


Subject: Re: CWD SAMPLING TEXAS (but NOT in the obvious place, the NM, TEXAS border)


Date: December 15, 2003 at 3:43 pm PST


In Reply to: CWD SAMPLING TEXAS (but NOT in the obvious place, the NM, TEXAS border) posted by TSS on December 12, 2003 at 2:15 pm:


Dear sirs: With regard to your comment about Texas NOT looking for CWD along the New Mexico border, it is painfully obvious that you do not know or understand the natural distribution of mule deer out there or the rights of the land owners in this state. As of 15 December 2003, a total of 42 deer had been sampled from what we call "Trans-Pecos", beyond the Pecos River. Mule deer are very widely dispersed through this area, sometimes at densities of one animal per 6 square miles. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department does not have the legal authority to trepass on private property to collect deer. Some landowners are cooperative. Some are not. Franklin State Park is at the very tip of Texas, and deer from the park have been tested (all negative). One of the single largest land owners along the border is the National Park Service. Deer and elk from the Guadalupe Peak National Park cannot be collected with federal permission. The sampling throughout the state is based on the deer populations by eco-region and is dictated by the availability of funds. I am concerned about your insinuation that CWD is a human health risk. We are at a stand-off - you have no proof that it is and I have no definitive proof that it isn't. However I would say that the inferred evidence from Colorado, Wyoming and Wisconsin suggests that CWD is not a human health concern (i.e. no evidence of an increased incidence of human brain disorders within the CWD "endemic" areas of these states). From my professional interactions with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, I can definitely say that they want to do a thorough and sound survey throughout the state, not willy-nilly "look here, look there". There are limitations of manpower, finances and, in some places, deer populations. I would congratulate TPWD for doing the best job with the limitations at hand rather than trying to browbeat them when you obviously do not understand the ecology of West Texas. Thank you for your consideration.




======================


From: TSS (216-119-139-126.ipset19.wt.net)


Subject: Re: CWD SAMPLING TEXAS (but NOT in the obvious place, the NM, TEXAS border)


Date: December 16, 2003 at 11:03 am PST


In Reply to: Re: CWD SAMPLING TEXAS (but NOT in the obvious place, the NM, TEXAS border) posted by Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD on December 15, 2003 at 3:43 pm:


HEllo Dr. Waldrup,


thank you for your comments and time to come to this board.


Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD states;


> it is painfully obvious that you do not know or understand the natural distribution of mule deer out there or the rights of the land owners in this state...


TSS states;


I am concerned about all deer/elk not just mule deer, and the rights of land owners (in the case with human/animal TSEs) well i am not sure of the correct terminology, but when the States deer/elk/cattle/sheep/humans are at risk, there should be no rights for land owners in this case. the state should have the right to test those animals. there are too many folks out there that are just plain ignorant about this agent. with an agent such as this, you cannot let landowners (and i am one) dictate human/animal health, especially when you cannot regulate the movement of such animals...


Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD states;


> Deer and elk from the Guadalupe Peak National Park cannot be collected with federal permission.


TSS states;


I do not understand this? so there is no recourse of action even if every deer/elk was contaminated with CWD in this area (hypothetical)?


Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD states;


> I am concerned about your insinuation that CWD is a human health risk. We are at a stand-off - you have no proof that it is and I have no definitive proof that it isn't. However I would say that the inferred evidence from Colorado, Wyoming and Wisconsin suggests that CWD is not a human health concern (i.e. no evidence of an increased incidence of human brain disorders within the CWD "endemic" areas of these states)...


TSS states;


indeed i am concerned as well with your insinuation about CWD not being a human health risk. NO, we are not at a standoff, i just think you are wrong in insinuating this when you have absolutely no proof, BUT, CWD does transmit to primate, and there have never been tranmission studies done on man (that's my proof). SO, hypothetically there is more proof that CWD has the potential to infect man than there is proof that it cannot. this should mean something, and in my opinion warrant some sort of public concern. BUT the only concern seems to be with the Industries involved, not for human/animal health. and you have this study;


The EMBO Journal, Vol. 19, No. 17 pp. 4425-4430, 2000 © European Molecular Biology Organization


Evidence of a molecular barrier limiting susceptibility of humans, cattle and sheep to chronic wasting disease


G.J. Raymond1, A. Bossers2, L.D. Raymond1, K.I. O?Rourke3, L.E. McHolland4, P.K. Bryant III4, M.W. Miller5, E.S. Williams6, M. Smits2 and B. Caughey1,7


1NIAID/NIH Rocky Mountain Laboratories, Hamilton, MT 59840, 3USDA/ARS/ADRU, Pullman, WA 99164-7030, 4USDA/ARS/ABADRL, Laramie, WY 82071, 5Colorado Division of Wildlife, Wildlife Research Center, Fort Collins, CO 80526-2097, 6Department of Veterinary Sciences, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82070, USA and 2ID-Lelystad, Institute for Animal Science and Health, Lelystad, The Netherlands 7Corresponding author e-mail: bcaughey@nih.gov Received June 7, 2000; revised July 3, 2000; accepted July 5, 2000.


snip...


Clearly, it is premature to draw firm conclusions about CWD passing naturally into humans, cattle and sheep, but the present results suggest that CWD transmissions to humans would be as limited by PrP incompatibility as transmissions of BSE or sheep scrapie to humans. Although there is no evidence that sheep scrapie has affected humans, it is likely that BSE has caused variant CJD in 74 people (definite and probable variant CJD cases to date according to the UK CJD Surveillance Unit). Given the presumably large number of people exposed to BSE infectivity, the susceptibility of humans may still be very low compared with cattle, which would be consistent with the relatively inefficient conversion of human PrP-sen by PrPBSE. Nonetheless, since humans have apparently been infected by BSE, it would seem prudent to take reasonable measures to limit exposure of humans (as well as sheep and cattle) to CWD infectivity as has been recommended for other animal TSEs.


snip...




Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD states;


> However I would say that the inferred evidence from Colorado, Wyoming and Wisconsin suggests that CWD is not a human health concern (i.e. no evidence of an increased incidence of human brain disorders within the CWD "endemic" areas of these states)...


TSS states;


I disagree with this on several fronts as well. for one thing there is no CJD surveillance to speak of, and there have been an increase of CJD in the USA in the young. some of these unfortunate folks have consumed deer and elk and been avid hunters. what will cwdCJD look like? could it look like sporadic CJD? (please see below)


The active surveillance study of 1996, however, only looked at cases in which physicians attributed the deaths to CJD. Misdiagnosed patients or patients who never saw a neurologist were not tabulated thus CJD may be grossly underreported. Many neurological ailments share symptoms, especially early on. According to various studies, autopsies have found that CJD is misdiagnosed as other ills, such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease, 5 to 13 percent of the time. The CDC finds that around 50,000 Americans die from Alzheimer's each year 228 CHAPTER 14 (about 4 million have the disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association). Therefore, one could argue that thousands of CJD cases are being missed. (On the flip side, CJD could be mistakenly diagnosed as Alzheimer's disease or dementia, but the number of CJD patients is so small that they wouldn't dramatically skew the statistics for other neurological ills.) In part to address the issue of misdiagnosis, CJD families have asked the CDC to place the disease on the national list of officially notifiable illnesses, which tends to include more contagious conditions such as AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis, and viral forms of encephalitis. Currently, only some states impose this requirement. CDC officials have discounted the utility of such an approach, arguing that it would duplicate the mortality data, which is more accurate than early diag- noses of CJD, anyway. Moreover, mandatory reporting of CJD cases does not necessarily guarantee the end to missed cases.8 One clue suggests that the passive system is undercounting CJD in the U.S.: racial difference. The number of black CJD victims is about 38 percent that of white victims. Rather than sporadic CJD being a one- in-a-million lottery, it's more like one-in-2.5-million for African- Americans. Access to medical care might be one reason. Schonberger recounted that the CDC had asked other countries with substantial black populations to submit CJD figures for comparison but found that the surveillance in those countries was inadequate. "We haven't been able to find any comparable literature on this issue, so it's still up in the air," Schonberger said. On the other hand, Alzheimer's disease is more common among black people than whites, with an estimated higher prevalence ranging from 14 percent to almost 100 percent, according to a February 2002 report by the Alzheimer's Association. Are some black CJD cases being misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's? Answering critics like Terry Singeltary, who feels that the U.S. under- counts CJD, Schonberger conceded that the current surveillance system has errors but stated that most of the errors will be confined to the older population. As Schonberger pointed out, no doctor would misdiagnose a 30-year-old CJD patient as having Alzheimer's. The average age of the first 100 variant CJD victims was 29; should the epidemiology of vCJD changeif older people start coming down with itthen there would be problems. "The adequacy of our overall CJD surveillance would be Laying Odds 229 greatly reduced should the proportion of older individuals affected by variant CJD substantially increase," Schonberger explained.9 To date, only brain autopsies can confirm CJD. To encourage the necessary neuropathological studies, in 1997 the CDC helped establish the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University, under the directorship of Pierluigi Gambetti. But the number of brains examined has fallen far short of the number of CJD cases in the U.S.: Gambetti's lab, which receives brains based on referrals from local physicians and families, looked at only 99 sporadic CJD cases in 2000 and 138 in 2001, when about 300 each year are expected. "I'm very unhappy with the numbers," Gambetti lamented. "European countries see 100 or 90 percent of all the cases suspected. We see 30 to 40 percent."10 Most families don't think about having an autopsy done (which can cost upward of $1,500 if the hospitals don't pick up the tab), and mem- bers of the support group CJD Voice have said they were too distraught to think of shipping a loved one's brain by Federal Express to Gambetti's lab. (For accurate analyses of brain tissue, the autopsy must be performed within 72 hours of death, assuming the body has been kept refrigerated.) Moreover, physicians often do not suggest an autopsy, perhaps because of liability fears should the postmortem reveal that the original diagnosis was wrong. Gambetti has been work- ing on establishing a network that would enable postmortems to be done near where the deceased person lived and without cost to the family. He is also working on advertising the existence of his surveil- lance center, via meetings and letters to neurologists, pathologists, and other specialists. Gambetti is also attempting to combat what he termed "hysteria" over the potential for infection that has pathologists irrationally shunning CJD cases while they willingly conduct arguably riskier AIDS autopsies. "In order to make people aware, you have to keep informing them over and over and over," he said. Money is the main reason why the U.S. lags behind Europe in terms of surveillance. To adequately survey the 290 U.S. million residents, "you need a lot of money," Robert Will explained. "There was a CJD meeting of families in America in which poor old Larry {Schonberger] got attacked fairly vigorously because there wasn't proper surveillance. You could only do proper surveillance if you have adequate resources. 230 CHAPTER 14 That's the bottom line. We're very fortunate in the U.K.; we have very generous resources for CJD surveillance." Moreover, the U.K. makes feline spongifbrm encephalopathy an offi- cially notifiable disease. Domestic cats proved to be good sentinel ani- mals because they dine on the meat not fit for human consumption the parts more likely to harbor prion infectivity. In the U.S., FSE isn't federally notifiable. And while the USDA says it has sent educational material to private veterinarians and works with vet schools,21 it's not clear just how many vets can spot FSE, which has never been reported in the U.S. Certainly, not many cat postmortems are done.


The only active portion of the U.S. CJD surveillance system are the follow-up investigations conducted for victims of CJD under 55 years of age. It began in 1996, when young people in the U.K. started succumb- ing to variant CJD. Victims under 30 years of age especially arouse interest, because such cases could indicate an infection from the envi- ronment. Except for the variant CJD case in Florida, the CDC has clas- sified all of these more youthful cases of CJD as having either sporadic or familial origins. One such age cluster involved the three venison eaters that the CDC tried unsuccessfully to link to the deer-and-elk borne chronic wasting disease.


A second grouping occurred in 2002 in a pair of Michigan men. The twoone 26 years old, the other 28 did not know each other but lived in neighboring counties in Michigan and went to the same hospi- tal for diagnosis.12 The CDC's investigation turned up nothing that suggested a new form of CJD had emerged. But the increased frequency of young CJD cases is disturbing. In the 18-year period between 1979 and 1996, the U.S. had 12 cases in patients under 30, and only one of them had the sporadic form of CJD. (The other cases resulted from heredity or from transmission via contami- nated growth hormone or dura mater grafts.13) Between 1997 and 2001, five people under 30 died of sporadic CJD: the three venison eaters and the two Michigan patients. That represents a substantial blip of five young cases in five years, as opposed to only one case in 18 years. Physicians at the University of Michigan Health System who examined the two Michigan men concluded: As a result of our findings, we feel that sporadic CJD may be more common than previously thought, that it may occur in younger indi- Laying Odds 231 viduals than currently perceived, and that some cases may go undiag- nosed due to insufficient testing. . . . We recommend that physicians everywhere begin to consider CJD in rapidly progressive neurological decline of unknown causes in people under 30 years of age, and that brain biopsy and autopsy with genetic and prion analysis be performed in all such cases.14 Pathologically, the recent bout of young casualties in the U.S. appears to be no different from CJD already seen in America. Yet theoretically it may have come from a new source of infection, based on an unex- pected result announced in late November 2002. John Collinge of the British Medical Research Council's Prion Unit found that not all trans- genic mice infected with BSE prions developed the neuropathological and molecular characteristics of variant CJD; some of the mice instead generated the molecular features of sporadic CJD. Therefore, some CJD cases classified as sporadic may have actually been caused by BSE prions, Collinge hypothesized.15 So far, the epidemiology of CJD in the U.K. does not bear out that suppositionthere has been no substantial uptick in sporadic CJD as would be expected if BSE could paint more than one pathological picture. But the preliminary study, taken at face value, could be seen as evidence that something infectious is happening in the cases of young, sporadic CJD victims in the U.S. Another mouse study, reported in March 2002, fueled concern that prion infections may be more common than previously thought.16 Stanley Prusiner's lab found that mice infected with mouse prions accu- mulated PrPSc in their skeletal muscles, mostly in those in the hind limbs. In some mice, each gram of muscle contained some 10 million infectious doseson par with that in the brain in other experiments involving intracerebral inoculation. To some CJD researchers, this find- ing suggested that muscle meat from cows might not be safe, after all, and that the measures taken in Europe to protect the food supply banning high-risk cow partsmay not be enough. Although this study may seem alarming, its implications are not as sweeping as they may appear. Only a minority of results in mouse stud- ies end up having a direct analog in humans. The skeletal muscle discov- ery warrants further examination, but it would be premature to alter food policies. Prions are different for each species, and accumulation of prions varies from species to species and from disease to disease. Furthermore, BSE cattle muscle has failed to sicken mice in bioassay 232 CHAPTER 14 work, suggesting that little or no infectious prions lurk there. What such findings truly reveal is that prion diseases are complicated and still mysterious, and trying to quantify the risks for human health is fraught with uncertainties...


snip...284 pages... The Pathological Protein: Mad Cow, Chronic Wasting, and Other Deadly Prion Diseases, Philip Yam Philip Yam News Editor Scientific American www.sciam.com






CJD screening may miss thousands of cases


By Steve Mitchell UPI Medical Correspondent Published 7/21/2003 3:00 PM View printer-friendly version


WASHINGTON, July 21 (UPI) -- The federal government's monitoring system for cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal human brain illness, could be missing tens of thousands of victims, scientists and consumer advocates have told United Press International.


Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD can be caused by eating beef contaminated with mad cow disease, but the critics assert without a better tracking system it might be impossible to determine whether any CJD cases are due to mad cow or obtain an accurate picture of the prevalence of the disorder in the United States.


Beginning in the late 1990s, more than 100 people contracted CJD in the United Kingdom and several European countries after eating beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- the clinical name for mad cow disease.


No case of mad cow has ever been detected in U.S. cattle and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's monitoring system has never detected a case of CJD due to eating contaminated American beef. Nevertheless, critics say, the CDC's system misses many cases of the disease, which currently is untreatable and is always fatal.


The first symptoms of CJD typically include memory loss and difficulty keeping balance and walking. As the disease destroys the brain, patients rapidly progress in a matter of months to difficulty with movement, an inability to talk and swallow and, finally, death.


Spontaneously-occurring or sporadic CJD is a rare disorder. Only about 300 cases appear nationwide each year, but several studies have suggested the disorder might be more common than thought and as many as tens of thousands of cases might be going unrecognized.


Clusters of CJD have been reported in various areas of the United States -- Pennsylvania in 1993, Florida in 1994, Oregon in 1996, New York in 1999-2000 and Texas in 1996. In addition, several people in New Jersey developed CJD in recent years, including a 56 year old woman who died on May 31, 2003. Although in some instances, a mad cow link was suspected, all of the cases ultimately were classified as sporadic.


People who develop CJD from eating mad-cow-contaminated beef have been thought to develop a specific form of the disorder called variant CJD. But new research, released last December, indicates the mad cow pathogen can cause both sporadic CJD and the variant form.


"Now people are beginning to realize that because something looks like sporadic CJD they can't necessarily conclude that it's not linked to (mad cow disease)," said Laura Manuelidis, section chief of surgery in the neuropathology department at Yale University, who conducted a 1989 study that found 13 percent of Alzheimer's patients actually had CJD.


Several studies, including Manuelidis', have found that autopsies reveal 3 percent to 13 percent of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia actually suffered from CJD. Those numbers might sound low, but there are 4 million Alzheimer's cases and hundreds of thousands of dementia cases in the United States. A small percentage of those cases could add up to 120,000 or more CJD victims going undetected and not included in official statistics.


Experiences in England and Switzerland -- two countries that discovered mad cow disease in their cattle -- have heightened concerns about the possibility some cases of sporadic CJD are due to consuming mad-cow-tainted beef. Both countries have reported increases in sporadic CJD since mad cow was first detected in British herds in 1986.


Switzerland discovered last year its CJD rate was twice that of any other country in the world. Switzerland had been seeing about eight to 11 cases per year from 1997 to 2000. Then the incidence more than doubled, to 19 cases in 2001 and 18 cases in 2002.


The CDC says the annual rate of CJD in the United States is one case per million people, but the above studies suggest the true prevalence of CJD is not known, Manuelidis told UPI.


Diagnosing CJD or Alzheimer's is difficult because no test exists that can identify either disease in a living patient with certainty. So physicians must rely on the patient's symptoms to determine which illness might be present. Sometimes, however, the symptoms of one disease can appear similar to the other disorder. The only way to determine the disease conclusively is to perform an autopsy on the brain after death.


Unfortunately, although autopsies once were performed on approximately half of all corpses, the frequency has dropped to 15 percent or less in the United States. The National Center for Health Statistics -- a branch of the CDC -- stopped collecting autopsy data in 1995.


"If we don't do autopsies and we don't look at people's brains ... we have no idea about what is the general prevalence of these kinds of infections and (whether) it is changing," Manuelidis said.


At the same time autopsies have been declining, the number of deaths attributed to Alzheimer's has increased more than 50-fold since 1979, going from 857 deaths then to nearly 50,000 in 2000. Though it is unlikely the dramatic increase in Alzheimer's is due entirely to misdiagnosed CJD cases, it "could explain some of the increase we've seen," Manuelidis said.


"Neurodegenerative disease and Alzheimer's disease have become a wastebasket" for mental illness in the elderly that is difficult to diagnose conclusively, she said. "In other words, what people call Alzheimer's now is more broad than what people used to call it, and that has the possibility of encompassing more diseases -- including CJD."


The autopsy studies that found undiagnosed CJD cases raise the question of whether the United States "already has an undetected epidemic here," Jeff Nelson, director of vegsource.com, a vegetarian advocacy Web site, told UPI.


"What's the source of that?" Nelson asked. "Could it be the same source of encephalitis we saw in minks?"


Nelson referred to an outbreak of a mad-cow-type disorder in minks in Wisconsin in the 1980s. The origin was traced back to the animals' diet, which included parts of so-called downer cattle -- sick cows that are unable to stand, which often indicates a neurological disease, including mad cow. The mink disease raised concerns about whether U.S. cattle were carrying a mad-cow-like pathogen even prior to the U.K. epidemic that began in 1986.


Andrew Monjan, chief of the neuropsychology of aging program at the National Institute of Aging -- part of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. -- acknowledged there has been an increase in U.S. Alzheimer's cases. However, he told UPI, this probably is due to the aging of the population -- as people grow older, they develop a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's.


"There's been no change in the number of CJD cases in the country and there has been clearly a tracking of the unusual cases of CJD" that could be due to mad cow disease, Monjan said. However, Terry Singletary, coordinator of CJD Watch -- an organization founded to track CJD cases -- says efforts to track the disease have been close to nonexistent. For example, only 12 states require such reports. Therefore, many cases might be going undetected, unreported or misdiagnosed.


If more states made CJD a reportable illness, there would be more clusters detected across the United States, said Singletary, who became involved with CJD advocacy after his mother died from a form of CJD known as Heidenhain variant. In the 18-year period between 1979 and 1996, he noted, the country saw a jump from one case of sporadic CJD in people under the age of 30 -- a warning sign for a link to mad cow because nearly all of the U.K. victims were 30 years of age or younger -- to five cases in five years between 1997 and 2001. "That represents a substantial blip," he told UPI.


Singletary also said there have been increases in sporadic CJD in France, Germany and Italy, all of which have detected mad cow disease in their cattle.


So far, the CDC has refused to impose a national requirement that physicians and hospitals report cases of the disease. The agency has not chosen to make CJD a reportable disease because "making it reportable is not necessarily directly helpful in surveillance because in some states where it's reportable you may not get the physician to report it," said Dr. Ermias Belay, CDC's medical epidemiologist working on CJD.


Instead, the agency relies on other methods, including death certificates and urging physicians to send suspicious cases to the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, which is funded by the CDC. However, because autopsies generally are not done, if a CJD case is misdiagnosed as Alzheimer's or dementia, a correct diagnosis might never be determined and therefore the cause of death listed on a death certificate might be inaccurate.


Belay told UPI he discounted this possibility. It is unlikely to happen, he said, because it is easy to distinguish CJD from Alzheimer's -- the two conditions display different symptoms.


Manuelidis disagreed. It can be quite difficult to determine accurately if a patient has CJD, as evidenced by her study, in which respected and competent neurologists and psychiatrists at Yale originally diagnosed patients with Alzheimer's, yet were wrong at least 13 percent of the time. Another study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania, which found 6 percent of dementia patients actually were suffering from CJD, supports the difficulty in distinguishing the illnesses correctly.


The U. Penn. researchers concluded: "These results show that in patients with a clinical diagnosis of dementia, the etiology (cause) cannot be accurately predicted during life."


In addition, the NPDPSC sees less than half of all the CJD cases each year, so the CDC's investigational system not only is missing many of the misdiagnosed CJD cases, it also is not conducting autopsies on most of the detected cases.


Belay said the CDC follows up on all cases of CJD that occur in people under age 55, as these could be linked to variant -- mad-cow-related -- CJD. But so far, all have turned out to be sporadic forms of the disease. About 30 cases of the disorder occur each year in the United States in this age group, while the remaining 270 or so are older.


The case of Carrie Mahan -- a Philadelphia woman who developed a brain disorder that appeared to be CJD and died from it in 2000 at the age of 29 -- illustrates just how difficult it can be to diagnose the disease.


Mahan's physician, Dr. Peter Crinos of the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, ruled out other disorders and felt certain the young woman had died of CJD, a concern that raised the possibility of a link to mad cow disease because of her young age. When neuropathologist Nicholas Gonatas, who had seen CJD before, examined Mahan's brain after her death, he, likewise, was confident he detected the microscopic, sponge-like holes caused by the disease. But when he sent brain samples to the NPDPSC, the results came back negative. Gonatas, convinced the surveillance center's finding was erroneous, sent off two more samples, only to have them both come back negative.


Subsequent research, however, has shown the test used by the surveillance center cannot rule out CJD, said Crinos, an assistant professor of neurology.


"There's no question that Carrie had a spongiform encephalopathy," Crinos said, but added although it appeared to be CJD, it is difficult if not impossible to say if it was due to mad cow disease.


Crinos told UPI until the CDC implements a better tracking system, a lot of questions will remain about CJD and cases like Carrie Mahan's. One central question: Why are cases of what is presumed to be a rare disease popping up in clusters in certain areas of the country? Crinos said the clustering suggests an environmental or food-borne cause, but so far, "No one knows the answer to that."


Copyright © 2001-2003 United Press International




One reason for this was the _inaccuracy_ in coding of cases correctly certified as CJD Coding is carried out by staff who are not medically qualified and it is not surprising that coding errors occur in the processing of large numbers of certificates. In 1982, 12,000 certificates per week were processed at the office of population censuses and surveys bu 15 coders and 6 checkers (Alderson et al., 1983). The occurrence of both inter- and intra-observer coding errors has been described (Curb et al., 1983) and the _inaccuracies_ of BOTH certification and coding discovered in this study _support_ the introduction of a more accurate system of death certificates and a more detailed and specific coding system...


snip...




AS implied in the Inset 25 we must not _ASSUME_ that transmission of BSE to other species will invariably present pathology typical of a scrapie-like disease.


snip...




Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD states;


> and is dictated by the availability of funds.


snip...


> From my professional interactions with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, I can definitely say that they want to do a thorough and sound survey throughout the state, not willy-nilly "look here, look there". There are limitations of manpower, finances and, in some places, deer populations. I would congratulate TPWD for doing the best job with the limitations at hand...


TSS states;


I would concur here, and congradulate them as well. BUT, it is not enough. we must do massive testing and thorough testing in all geographical locations. IF the USA has 270 BILLION to rebuild Iraq, it would seem that we could find enough money to fend off a disease that theoretically could wipe out the deer, elk, cattle, and sheep populations if continued to be ignored, not to speak of what it could do to humans in the long haul, through various proven routes and sources...


Ken Waldrup, DVM, PhD states;


> rather than trying to browbeat them when you obviously do not understand the ecology of West Texas.


TSS states;


I am not browbeating anyone, or no intention, just trying to keep the fire lit here Sir, and this I must do. I think I know more of what I speak of than you seem to be aware of. I am very concerned with the minimal amount of money and time and effort being spent in TEXAS on CWD, especially with the real threat of sub-clinical CWD/TSE infections and especially with cattle, but that's a no no.


again, thank you for your comments, they are very much appreciated.


kind regards, Terry




=================




Tuesday, June 26, 2012


Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease Human TSE report update North America, Canada, Mexico, and USDA PRION UNIT as of May 18, 2012


type determination pending Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (tdpCJD), is on the rise in Canada and the USA






SEE STEADY INCREASE OF SPORADIC CJD IN THE U.K. TO 2011, from 28 in 1990, to 90 cases in 2011, the highest number to date in any given year, for sporadic CJD. remember, sporadic CJD is not a single strain, but many strains of unknown, undocumented origin, to date. ...TSS








*** Spraker suggested an interesting explanation for the occurrence of CWD. The deer pens at the Foot Hills Campus were built some 30-40 years ago by a Dr. Bob Davis. At or abut that time, allegedly, some scrapie work was conducted at this site. When deer were introduced to the pens they occupied ground that had previously been occupied by sheep.


(PLEASE NOTE SOME OF THESE OLD UK GOVERNMENT FILE URLS ARE SLOW TO OPEN, AND SOMETIMES YOU MAY HAVE TO CLICK ON MULTIPLE TIMES, PLEASE BE PATIENT, ANY PROBLEMS PLEASE WRITE ME PRIVATELY, AND I WILL TRY AND FIX OR SEND YOU OLD PDF FILE...TSS)








CJD9/10022




October 1994




Mr R.N. Elmhirst Chairman British Deer Farmers Association Holly Lodge Spencers Lane BerksWell Coventry CV7 7BZ




Dear Mr Elmhirst,




CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE (CJD) SURVEILLANCE UNIT REPORT




Thank you for your recent letter concerning the publication of the third annual report from the CJD Surveillance Unit. I am sorry that you are dissatisfied with the way in which this report was published.




The Surveillance Unit is a completely independant outside body and the Department of Health is committed to publishing their reports as soon as they become available. In the circumstances it is not the practice to circulate the report for comment since the findings of the report would not be amended. In future we can ensure that the British Deer Farmers Association receives a copy of the report in advance of publication.




The Chief Medical Officer has undertaken to keep the public fully informed of the results of any research in respect of CJD. This report was entirely the work of the unit and was produced completely independantly of the the Department.




The statistical results reqarding the consumption of venison was put into perspective in the body of the report and was not mentioned at all in the press release. Media attention regarding this report was low key but gave a realistic presentation of the statistical findings of the Unit. This approach to publication was successful in that consumption of venison was highlighted only once by the media ie. in the News at one television proqramme.




I believe that a further statement about the report, or indeed statistical links between CJD and consumption of venison, would increase, and quite possibly give damaging credence, to the whole issue. From the low key media reports of which I am aware it seems unlikely that venison consumption will suffer adversely, if at all.








PLUS, THE CDC DID NOT PUT THIS WARNING OUT FOR THE WELL BEING OF THE DEER AND ELK ;




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.








NOR IS THE FDA recalling this CWD positive elk meat for the well being of the dead elk ;




Wednesday, March 18, 2009




Noah's Ark Holding, LLC, Dawson, MN RECALL Elk products contain meat derived from an elk confirmed to have CWD NV, CA, TX, CO, NY, UT, FL, OK RECALLS AND FIELD CORRECTIONS: FOODS CLASS II








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.




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




Joseph Y. Abrams, MPH, Ryan A. Maddox, MPH , Alexis R. Harvey, MPH , Lawrence B. Schonberger, MD , Ermias D. Belay, MD




Accepted 15 November 2010. Abstract Full Text PDF References .




Abstract




The transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) to human beings and the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) among cervids have prompted concerns about zoonotic transmission of prion diseases. Travel to the United Kingdom and other European countries, hunting for deer or elk, and venison consumption could result in the exposure of US residents to the agents that cause BSE and CWD. The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network 2006-2007 population survey was used to assess the prevalence of these behaviors among residents of 10 catchment areas across the United States. Of 17,372 survey respondents, 19.4% reported travel to the United Kingdom since 1980, and 29.5% reported travel to any of the nine European countries considered to be BSE-endemic since 1980. The proportion of respondents who had ever hunted deer or elk was 18.5%, and 1.2% had hunted deer or elk in a CWD–endemic area. More than two thirds (67.4%) reported having ever eaten deer or elk meat. Respondents who traveled spent more time in the United Kingdom (median 14 days) than in any other BSE-endemic country. Of the 11,635 respondents who had consumed venison, 59.8% ate venison at most one to two times during their year of highest consumption, and 88.6% had obtained all of their meat from the wild. The survey results were useful in determining the prevalence and frequency of behaviors that could be important factors for foodborne prion transmission.








"These findings indicate that a high percentage of the United States population engages in hunting and/or venison consumption. If CWD continues to spread to more areas across the country, a substantial number of people could potentially be exposed to the infectious agent."




Potential Venison Exposure Among FoodNet Population Survey Respondents, 2006-2007




Ryan A. Maddox1*, Joseph Y. Abrams1, Robert C. Holman1, Lawrence B. Schonberger1, Ermias D. Belay1 Division of Viral and Rickettsial Diseases, National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne, and Enteric Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA *Corresponding author e-mail: rmaddox@cdc.gov




The foodborne transmission of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to humans, resulting in variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, indicates that humans can be susceptible to animal prion diseases. However, it is not known whether foodborne exposure to the agent causing chronic wasting disease (CWD) in cervids can cause human disease. The United States Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet) conducts surveillance for foodborne diseases through an extensive survey administered to respondents in selected states. To describe the frequency of deer and elk hunting and venison consumption, five questions were included in the 2006-2007 FoodNet survey. This survey included 17,372 respondents in ten states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee. Of these respondents, 3,220 (18.5%) reported ever hunting deer or elk, with 217 (1.3%) reporting hunting in a CWD-endemic area (northeastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming, and southwestern Nebraska). Of the 217 CWD-endemic area hunters, 74 (34.1%) were residents of Colorado. Respondents reporting hunting were significantly more likely to be male than female (prevalence ratio: 3.3, 95% confidence interval: 3.1-3.6) and, in general, older respondents were significantly more likely to report hunting than younger respondents. Venison consumption was reported by more than half (67.4%) of the study population, and most venison consumers (94.1%) reported that at least half of their venison came from the wild. However, more than half (59.1%) of the consumers reported eating venison only one to five times in their life or only once or twice a year. These findings indicate that a high percentage of the United States population engages in hunting and/or venison consumption. If CWD continues to spread to more areas across the country, a substantial number of people could potentially be exposed to the infectious agent.








now, let’s see what the authors said about this casual link, personal communications years ago. see where it is stated NO STRONG evidence. so, does this mean there IS casual evidence ????




“Our conclusion stating that we found no strong evidence of CWD transmission to humans”




From: TSS (216-119-163-189.ipset45.wt.net)




Subject: CWD aka MAD DEER/ELK TO HUMANS ???




Date: September 30, 2002 at 7:06 am PST




From: "Belay, Ermias"




To:




Cc: "Race, Richard (NIH)" ; ; "Belay, Ermias"




Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 9:22 AM




Subject: RE: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG HUNTERS




Dear Sir/Madam,




In the Archives of Neurology you quoted (the abstract of which was attached to your email), we did not say CWD in humans will present like variant CJD.




That assumption would be wrong. I encourage you to read the whole article and call me if you have questions or need more clarification (phone: 404-639-3091). Also, we do not claim that "no-one has ever been infected with prion disease from eating venison." Our conclusion stating that we found no strong evidence of CWD transmission to humans in the article you quoted or in any other forum is limited to the patients we investigated.




Ermias Belay, M.D. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention




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




From:




Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 10:15 AM




To: rr26k@nih.gov; rrace@niaid.nih.gov; ebb8@CDC.GOV




Subject: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG HUNTERS




Sunday, November 10, 2002 6:26 PM ......snip........end..............TSS




Thursday, April 03, 2008




A prion disease of cervids: Chronic wasting disease




2008 1: Vet Res. 2008 Apr 3;39(4):41




A prion disease of cervids: Chronic wasting disease




Sigurdson CJ.




snip...




*** twenty-seven CJD patients who regularly consumed venison were reported to the Surveillance Center***,




snip...




full text ;








Monday, November 14, 2011




WYOMING Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, CWD, TSE, PRION REPORTING 2011








Wednesday, November 16, 2011




Wisconsin Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease, CWD, TSE, PRION REPORTING 2011








Sunday, November 13, 2011




COLORADO CWD CJD TSE PRION REPORTING 2011








Monday, May 23, 2011 CDC




Assesses Potential Human Exposure to Prion Diseases Travel Warning




Public release date: 23-May-2011




Contact: Francesca Costanzo adajmedia@elsevier.com 215-239-3249 Elsevier Health Sciences




CDC assesses potential human exposure to prion diseases Study results reported in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association Philadelphia, PA, May 23, 2011 – Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have examined the potential for human exposure to prion diseases, looking at hunting, venison consumption, and travel to areas in which prion diseases have been reported in animals. Three prion diseases in particular – bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE or "Mad Cow Disease"), variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), and chronic wasting disease (CWD) – were specified in the investigation. The results of this investigation are published in the June issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.




"While prion diseases are rare, they are generally fatal for anyone who becomes infected. More than anything else, the results of this study support the need for continued surveillance of prion diseases," commented lead investigator Joseph Y. Abrams, MPH, National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, CDC, Atlanta."But it's also important that people know the facts about these diseases, especially since this study shows that a good number of people have participated in activities that may expose them to infection-causing agents."




Although rare, human prion diseases such as CJD may be related to BSE. Prion (proteinaceous infectious particles) diseases are a group of rare brain diseases that affect humans and animals. When a person gets a prion disease, brain function is impaired. This causes memory and personality changes, dementia, and problems with movement. All of these worsen over time. These diseases are invariably fatal. Since these diseases may take years to manifest, knowing the extent of human exposure to possible prion diseases could become important in the event of an outbreak.




CDC investigators evaluated the results of the 2006-2007 population survey conducted by the Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet). This survey collects information on food consumption practices, health outcomes, and demographic characteristics of residents of the participating Emerging Infections Program sites. The survey was conducted in Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Tennessee, as well as five counties in the San Francisco Bay area, seven counties in the Greater Denver area, and 34 counties in western and northeastern New York.




Survey participants were asked about behaviors that could be associated with exposure to the agents causing BSE and CWD, including travel to the nine countries considered to be BSE-endemic (United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, France, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain) and the cumulative length of stay in each of those countries. Respondents were asked if they ever had hunted for deer or elk, and if that hunting had taken place in areas considered to be CWD-endemic (northeastern Colorado, southeastern Wyoming or southwestern Nebraska). They were also asked if they had ever consumed venison, the frequency of consumption, and whether the meat came from the wild.




The proportion of survey respondents who reported travel to at least one of the nine BSE endemic countries since 1980 was 29.5%. Travel to the United Kingdom was reported by 19.4% of respondents, higher than to any other BSE-endemic country. Among those who traveled, the median duration of travel to the United Kingdom (14 days) was longer than that of any other BSE-endemic country. Travelers to the UK were more likely to have spent at least 30 days in the country (24.9%) compared to travelers to any other BSE endemic country. The prevalence and extent of travel to the UK indicate that health concerns in the UK may also become issues for US residents.




The proportion of survey respondents reporting having hunted for deer or elk was 18.5% and 1.2% reported having hunted for deer or elk in CWD-endemic areas. Venison consumption was reported by 67.4% of FoodNet respondents, and 88.6% of those reporting venison consumption had obtained all of their meat from the wild. These findings reinforce the importance of CWD surveillance and control programs for wild deer and elk to reduce human exposure to the CWD agent. Hunters in CWD-endemic areas are advised to take simple precautions such as: avoiding consuming meat from sickly deer or elk, avoiding consuming brain or spinal cord tissues, minimizing the handling of brain and spinal cord tissues, and wearing gloves when field-dressing carcasses.




According to Abrams, "The 2006-2007 FoodNet population survey provides useful information should foodborne prion infection become an increasing public health concern in the future. The data presented describe the prevalence of important behaviors and their associations with demographic characteristics. Surveillance of BSE, CWD, and human prion diseases are critical aspects of addressing the burden of these diseases in animal populations and how that may relate to human health."




###




The article is "Travel history, hunting, and venison consumption related to prion disease exposure, 2006-2007 FoodNet population survey" by Joseph Y. Abrams, MPH; Ryan A. Maddox, MPH; Alexis R Harvey, MPH; Lawrence B. Schonberger, MD; and Ermias D. Belay, MD. It appears in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 111, Issue 6 (June 2011) published by Elsevier.




In an accompanying podcast CDC's Joseph Y. Abrams discusses travel, hunting, and eating venison in relation to prion diseases. It is available at http://adajournal.org/content/podcast.








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...












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 ;










Thursday, August 12, 2010


Seven main threats for the future linked to prions


First threat


The TSE road map defining the evolution of European policy for protection against prion diseases is based on a certain numbers of hypotheses some of which may turn out to be erroneous. In particular, a form of BSE (called atypical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), recently identified by systematic testing in aged cattle without clinical signs, may be the origin of classical BSE and thus potentially constitute a reservoir, which may be impossible to eradicate if a sporadic origin is confirmed.


***Also, a link is suspected between atypical BSE and some apparently sporadic cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans. These atypical BSE cases constitute an unforeseen first threat that could sharply modify the European approach to prion diseases.


Second threat


snip...






Sunday, January 22, 2012


Chronic Wasting Disease CWD cervids interspecies transmission




Thursday, January 26, 2012


The Risk of Prion Zoonoses


Science 27 January 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6067 pp. 411-413 DOI: 10.1126/science.1218167




Thursday, January 26, 2012


Facilitated Cross-Species Transmission of Prions in Extraneural Tissue


Science 27 January 2012: Vol. 335 no. 6067 pp. 472-475 DOI: 10.1126/science.1215659




Friday, June 29, 2012


Highly Efficient Prion Transmission by Blood Transfusion


 
 
 



layperson



Terry S. Singeltary Sr.

P.O. Box 42

Bacliff, Texas USA 77518



posted by Terry S. Singeltary Sr. at 11:28 AM

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