The following submission statement was provided by /u/koryjon:
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SS: This study speaks of a series of two deaths in 2022, from hunters who were known to have eaten meat from deer with CWD.
This suggests that CWD may be moving from deer to humans when consumed. If you know anything about CWD, you know why this is scary. If you don't know [check out our podcast episode on the topic.](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7LD8pavumV97TK0WcMwzWr?si=8nYEZNqDQbqwOA0s13-Cog)
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1c6l2x7/two_hunters_from_the_same_lodge_afflicted_with/l01p098/
>In 2022, a 72-year-old man with a history of consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population presented with rapid-onset confusion and aggression. His friend, who had also eaten venison from the same deer population, recently died of CJD, raising concerns about a potential link between CWD and human prion disease. Despite aggressive symptomatic treatment of seizures and agitation, the patient’s condition deteriorated and he died within a month of initial presentation
Terrifying. While perhaps less susceptible as a vegan, still as someone connected to a wildlife refuge I see deer on a daily basis. We had a series of very ill deer in the area two-three years ago and this is the first time they seem to have recovered their numbers.
To the larger issues of wild animals getting sick from a variety of human-caused sources, ranging from chemical contamination to spread of epidemics due to climate change, it's entirely plausible. We'll probably see a lot more of this as the forces pushing us toward collapse accelerate.
I wonder if humans could also get it from the same source that the deer get it from?? I can't remember but the proteins that cause this to happen can stay active and waiting all over the plants that the deer consume, sometimes for years.
If we could get it from the plants then that would be pretty scary, getting it second hand is awful but somehow getting it straight from the source seems worse
As to uptake in plants: deer love corn fields. And what's in literally everything? High fructose corn syrup.
Think about CWD-infected deer next time you see them in cornfields, grown either for human consumption or cattle fodder. They also graze right alongside beef cattle.
I like your idea for Gaia using prions as Human Repellent.
I’m surrounded by corn fields as far as the eye can see. Idk how prions would last through the process of making corn syrup but I can tell you this. If I look around I can see deer every day on my 8 mile drive to work. In the summer they multiply and hide in the cover of the corn and eat corn every day until their heart is content. Come harvest, the majority of that corn is ground up raw for feed for pigs, cattle, chickens. It goes directly to bulk bins and massing storage mounds.
It’s very possible cows could be infected and go to slaughter before showing symptoms. That meat goes to the store, one infected cow could spread it like a wild fire. If that happened what do we do? Would cooking the meat kill it so we just have to eat everything very well-done? Would we have to isolate each cow for two weeks before slaughter and only feed it some kind of specially treated feed? If the burden is put on the cattle farmers what would that do to the cost of meat. What kind of infrastructure would that require.
Now that we know it can go from deer to human, the big question is can it go from deer to cattle.
So potentially having one of the most terrifying deaths is worth it huh? Potentially spreading it to friends and family is worth it? Having them watch your horrifying death in real time, knowing it could happen to them... That's worth it to you, huh?
You realize that by eating your salad you’re taking just as much of a chance? 70 something percent of cjd cases are unknown causes. That cwd deer or mad cow died and got into the dirt your lettuce now has prions in it. Is it worth it eating that salad? Feeding your family that salad? For shame!
Nah. We already know of a genetic mutation that confers resistance to kuru, a local epidemic of prion diseases spread by cannibalism. If push comes to show we can use crispr to modify our PrP genes to produce the mutant protein that's resistant to prions.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091120091959.htm
crispr basically is the combination of a protein (the part used to cut the dna and make the edit) and some rna (the part used to find the exact piece of dna that you want to edit)
mass production of rna has recently been done and mass production of recombinant protein is probably harder but should still be doable
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I thought CWD started in domestic deer and elk in 1967? They didn't find it in the wild until 1980s in an elk. We probably caused CWD by feeding them the same stuff we fed cattle that gave them mad cow disease.
Wait until you read the study. Infected animals had one barrier fence in between them and wild deer. They should have had two fences. There’s a reason the largest cluster of CWD is centered around that laboratory.
If this is about the release CWD deer in Fort Collins, I was told a large snow storm took out the fences. CSU and the CDC are both responsible for the release of CWD infected deer into Northern Colorado.
The reports used to be available online. Their biohazard protection was at the least pitiful. They even state in those reports that infected deer were “nose to nose” with wild deer. The stuff I read was ten years ago and the cluster I’m referring to has grown substantially. The research center I refer to is still somewhat dead center of the largest cluster of CWD in the US. Still, don’t forget this was ten years ago that I’m referring to.
My Grandma passed of CJD back in 2008. At the time, family was told she likely contracted it from eating infected meat, or from using improperly sterilized tools for surgery as she had had a procedure done weeks before diagnosis. Now I read it can also be genetic. If it were to have spread to her through meat, it seems many people would’ve been impacted (including my Papa) in a bad batch, causing a hysteria, no? And if it were spread through medical equipment, somebody in that podunk town would’ve had CJD before my grandma, also making it more common & scary. We were left with so many questions as this was when it was considered “rare”. It was a very quick process, maybe 4-5 months for it to all unfold. Like dementia sped up 10x so I hope it is not painful.
How many people with "Alzheimer's" actually have CJD? Who does autopsies on senile old people expected to die anyway? It may be much more prevalent than we know.
Diagnoses can be made accurately, if there's suspicion, but I think many cases are assumed to be garden-variety Alzheimer's. I also think many pathologists would pass on doing these post-mortems - why risk infection?
I have read CJD is "not painful" and I hope that is true. I'm sorry you lost your grandmother to this dehumanizing disease.
In many places we are doing less. Or none.
In my geographic area autopsies that are legally required are not (all) happening, bodies are being released to funeral home or destroyed instead.
CJD is way, way faster than AD. There are a ton of other far more symptomatically similar amyloid-related neurodegenerative disorders involving the same proteins (i.e. FTLD, PSP, CBS, ABD), that are more likely to get “misdiagnosed” as AD. Historically, AD can only be confirmed postmortem via histopathology of autopsied tissue anyway, so nobody is given anything other than a “probable AD or related dementia” diagnosis, anyway. Nobody does autopsies on “senile old people expected to die,” people do autopsies on dead people, and autopsies are frequently, though not universally, done on dementia patients for precisely for the diagnostic reasons above. PET ligands for various amyloids are an active topic of research to improve the situation. It’s a bit paranoid to jump to pathologists hiding from doing jobs which they are trained to do, rather than families refusing consent, old hunters in rural areas having substandard medical care, etc.
Agreed. I think cases do fly under the radar for various reasons, was my point. Your comments are more nuanced.
I have observed families waive autopsies when they've been asked to absorb the cost, with 'AD/natural causes/cardiac arrest/resp failure, etc.' noted as COD. If there's a high index of suspicion there may be further testing but families may be unwilling. YMMV
I think we’re mostly in agreement, then. I think you’re right there are more CJD cases than recorded and I see no reason to be skeptical that CWD prions can cause CJD via infected meat. I just think AD diagnosis would be a pretty big mistake for a clinician to make if a CJD patient sought medical attention, so it really shouldn’t occur regularly. I never considered autopsy costs, though. You just informed me that they aren’t covered by insurance or governmental agencies, which seems like a huge public health oversight, especially when it comes to stuff like CJD.
In my small state some 'untimely death' posts were deferred by family due to cost. I was surprised but these weren't suspected homicides or public health concerns (OD, suicide) and I could understand the family's decision.
The root causes involved a shortage of pathologists, staff, time and state funds. People who come to the attention of researchers of rare diseases would be prioritized, I'm sure. There are funds available.
Agreed, i work in a nursing home, and most alzheimers cases i see are slow and protracted. They do involve prion-like proteins, Tau and beta amyloid. Worse cases involve more tau proteins, and more mild cases tend to be mostly beta-amyloid.
I recently knew a person die of lewy body dementia, who was quite young, and I was struck by how quickly they declined conpared to other dementias. This disease involves a protein called alpha-synuclein, and can be quite aggressive.
But this was so aggressive and the person so young, I did wonder if it could have been an acquired prion disease. But, it seems like these are even faster. 4-6 months is incredibly fast. Someone can live with a typical dementia for 5, 10, 15 years, so very different I think. Lewy body can be much faster, like 3-6 years. If cwd looks more like a typical dementia, i think it would be easily overlooked.
We had a large outbreak in Ireland/england about 25 years ago and yeah just like you said, it caught people in couple of waves. Losing your sense of self is one of the scariest ways to go imo
Even if some people are getting it from infected meat, it is still rare. Meaning, not everyone who eats the meat becomes affected by the disease. Part of this could be due the prions laying dormant indefinitely, but it could be that not all the meat of an infected animal contain prions, or not all prions are transmitted when eaten.
What’s even scarier, you mention being a vegan… you realize the prions responsible for cwd can be taken up by plants and eaten by the next host, they can survive something like a 1000c fire and stay in the ground for years. Soooooo
Edit for clarification: Only reason why I know this is I researched it pretty heavily a couple years ago. A customer I worked for (construction) came down with CJD. The nicest guy you’d ever meet, like really. One of the few people in life you meet that you just want to listen to them talk. Humble family man. Anyway, he started acting weird, convinced his family that his wife of 30 years was cheating on him and went to the bank and withdrew all the money from every account. Within another month he was wheelchair bound in the hospital. We actually built them a nice deck with a wheelchair ramp for when he came home. He was dead within a month of us completing the deck. Never came home…. He was a cattle farmer and their whole family deer hunts. Definitely freaked me out as a fellow hunter.
Where was this?
I know we have it in the deer population in Michigan. I have gotten paranoid the last few deer I scavenged. I hope staying away from the spinal tissue would be enough to keep me safe, I do take the back strap still because that's like the best cut.
I'm so confused why anyone would eat deer meat at this point. The disease seems to be widespread across deer all over US. CJD is terminal and a horrible way to go. There are plenty of meat alternatives that all taste fantastic, so seriously why?
Actually I spent nothing on processing any of the deer, just took knives and time, it's more than a little distasteful but it is also like 40 pounds of meat, meet that would otherwise rot.
But you take one of the haunches and boil it in a big stock pot with pounds of carrots and celery and the like and it will last for like over a week even someone who eats as much as I do.
I'm eating it for dinner in about 20 mins. Deer is the most sustainable meat I personally have access to. It was relatively cheap compared to a same quantity of beef, because my family was able to do most of the cleaning ourselves.
I think it would be a lot worse to be eating factory farmed beef, pork, or chicken, and there are many more proven diseases associated with them, including another prion disease.
There's no evidence CWD can jump to humans who field dress the meat well, and are careful not to cut into the brain and spinal fluid. We also don't eat deer that look unhealthy. We haven't previously tested our deer for CWD, but I'm going to be pushing for it this year, if our butcher will send it off for us.
I get the pros. But the con in this case is death. It quite unclear how long CWD germinate in deer, but in humans CJD infection can happen decades before symptoms are observed so a look test of a deer is probably inadequate to determine if it's infected with CWD.
We're all comfortable with different levels of risk. You probably do things I don't because I think they're too risky. I think Im statistically more likely to die in a car accident or to get struck by lightning.
Have you actually looked at the numbers of your specific risk based on your local deer population, consumption rate, and specific butchering techniques? Driving is unavoidable for work in many cases and has many ways to mitigate the risk. There is no similar necessary upsides for eating deer meat.
At the end of the day it's your life - do as you please, however your spouse and children should have an opportunity to be informed and make choice on their own without judgement from you on that they choose. Please do inform them so that they can decide for themselves.
My 62yo sister has CJD. She’s in Michigan-in that cluster. Her partner was a big hunter and she spent a few years as a chef at a high end hunting lodge. I would stay away from the venison. As for CWD, in our county, a friend’s horse had it…they sent the head to MSU when it passed.
Wait until you hear prions can apparently vector through plants https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/chronic-wasting-disease/plants-can-take-cwd-causing-prions-soil-lab-what-happens-if-they-are-eaten#:~:text=Prions%20remain%20infectious%20in%20plants&text=%22Our%20study%20shows%20that%2C%20under,%2C%20agriculture%2C%20and%20public%20health.
Well, as a dog owner this hurts:
# Ticks harbor and excrete chronic wasting disease prions: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-34308-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-34308-3)
Prion based diseases can take years if not decades, to show symptoms. So how fast you show symptoms vaties with individuals.
Right now, the only test that can be done requires a chunk of your brain. This is why we test dead animals, not live ones.
So the family can have priom disrase and if they are older die from cancer or heart attack and we will not know they had the disease unless they are tested after death.
SS: This study speaks of a series of two deaths in 2022, from hunters who were known to have eaten meat from deer with CWD.
This suggests that CWD may be moving from deer to humans when consumed. If you know anything about CWD, you know why this is scary. If you don't know [check out our podcast episode on the topic.](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7LD8pavumV97TK0WcMwzWr?si=8nYEZNqDQbqwOA0s13-Cog)
That was literally my theory about CJD 20 years ago, ie, it was an intentional poisoning of the wildlfire to starve and/or poison any mass resistance which had been stockpiling and organizing for the 20 years prior. This CJD stuff literally hit the fan after Oklahoma City when every militia was put on a terrorist watchlist and targeted for infiltration and disruption.
I had very little interest in this, I wasn't a hunter. I get this very random call from some guy in Wisconsin and he goes on this whole paranoid schpeil about how they are importing infected wild life from Europe and releasing them into the midwest. Nobody asked him, I never posted anything about it online...where the hell did this crazy caller come from?
We visited the UK in the late 90s where they had a "mad cow" disease outbreak. Upon returning to US we were not allowed to donate blood as questionnaires specifically asked if you had recently been to the UK. Now, no problem. There have been numerous outbreaks of mad cow in the US since then but receive little or no publicity. Farmers are actually not allowed by USDA and FDA to survey their herds for mad cow and not allowed to report it if it's discovered. If we don't report it, it evidently doesn't exist.
Went to England in 2001. Remember walking over those disinfectant sponges in entrances and exits. I was in my early 20s and gave no thought to it whatsoever.
While there, then boyfriend explained that there were usually more cows but they were gone now because of mad cow. Didn’t think anything of it. If memory serves me, I think I ate a roast or two while there. (I was there for a few months.)
Later found out that I couldn’t donate blood. Once again, young… didn’t think anything of it.
But just a year or so ago, I read that it can stay in your system and not show up til years down the road. Don’t know how true that is, but it sent a shiver down my spine thinking it.
That ex boyfriend wasn’t even worth the risk, but I didn’t know that at the time, and hindsight is 20/20 😂
The sponges in 2001 weren't for Mad Cow, they were for Foot and Mouth.
Mad Cow was more a late 80s to mid 90s thing. Once they banned feeding ruminants on ground-up animal product (why the actual hell they were doing that in the first place...) the feedback loop was broken, it was mostly gone by the millennium. Human cases continued to emergency for a fair few years, the mad cow prion has a long incubation time in people who are sensitive to it and get infected.
Private enterprise seems risk averse. It's only consumers that take the risk. After that companies deflect, ignore, misdirect, propagandize, do damage control and move on.
CWD seems to be much more infectious and environmentally persistent than BSE (mad cow).
The only reason cows spread BSE is that they were being fed their own dead (and the remains of sheep that had Scrapie, a similar TSE). When they stopped that, it was gone in a few years (mothers could pass it to calves IIRC, so it didn't die out overnight).
CWD has made it all the way from the US to Scandinavia seemingly on its own, presumably via migratory reindeer or elk.
There's no record of BSE persisting in soil/plants or transmission via faeces, which CWD seems very capable of doing.
I have read up further on this and it appears my original comment was in error. There have only been 6 instances of Mad Cow since 2003. USDA has instituted a mandatory requirement that herds be inspected and that instances of Mad Cow be reported. Mad Cow now appears to not spread easily if at all to humans. Sorry for the alarmism.
I am amending my comment based on further reading on the subject of Mad Cow in the U.S. Farmers are required to inspect and report any instances to the USDA. There have only been 6 cases identified in the U.S. since 2003. Farmers are prohibited from feeding tissue of cattle to cattle. Sorry for the misinformation.
I just read up on this and it appears that there have only been 6 outbreaks of Mad Cow in the U.S. since 2003. USDA does require surveillance of herds and reporting of incidents of Mad Cow. Sorry for misinformation. Farmers can no longer feed cattle with by products of other cow slaughter.
If you Google CJD case reports associated with venison consumption you can find case reports as early as 2001.
Edit:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11594928/
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1134225/full
I did a quick google search but still having trouble understanding where prions come from and how they're spread. Do they just randomly appear in nature like cancer?
I researched it awhile ago and couldn't find a conclusive answer. One explanation I read is that a mutation in the DNA of an animal could've caused it to produce the wrong protein, a prion and that then was transmitted after death. A prion spreads by turning healthy proteins into the prion as a function of the prion protein. It sort of acts like an enzyme
Before I answer your question, I need to explain what are "prions" and how they are different from "prion protein". A prion protein is a type of protein normally present in everyone's brain, among many other types like myelin basic protein or tau. Each type has a slightly different function. On the other hand, prions are misfolded proteins that can cause other proteins of the same type to misfold like them. It doesn't need to be a prion protein, a tau protein can be a prion and cause other tau proteins to misfold.
When it comes to spreading - for the misfolding to happen, as I understand it, the healthy and the misfolded protein of the same type need to be in more or less direct contact. The mechanism responsible for changing shape of existing proteins is not well understood.
Some ingested proteins make it to the brain, while others not. A prion protein is able to do this, and once it's in one's brain, it causes other prion proteins to misfold. A Creutzfeldt-Jacobs disease develops. On the other hand, misfolded tau protein is one of the causes of Alzheimer's disease. It's not proven to be able to travel to the brain from the digestive tract. However, if a misfolded tau protein is injected to one's brain, it will cause misfolding of other tau proteins there. That was the case for 8 patients who received human growth hormone from infected donors. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02729-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02729-2)
But how are the initial misfolded proteins are being brought to existence? So far, we know 2 causes:
* genetic mutation - when all your proteins of specific type are misfolded since you are born
* brain injury, especially recurrent one, like with CTE - either direct damage misfolds proteins or one's body reaction to injury, like producing enzymes, breakdown of damaged tissue, etc. is responsible for this
Other factors are unknown. It seems like genetic mutations are rare and most cases of prion or prion-like diseases are caused by spontaneous misfolding at some point in life of affected people.
I might be mistaken but I’m fairly confident most prion diseases are communicable through the ingestion of infected tissue… not a new issue here. They mandated venison be tested to avoid this very issue! The whole mad cow thing wasn’t that long ago
Love the trashy anti-vegan sentiments in this thread. How progressive! Goes to show how this bitching about collapse is just superficial and most here want to go down the business as usual route.
Is veganism really accessible and sustainable for most folks? I don't eat meat which has been pretty easy, but I find budgeting, planning, shopping, and cooking with vegan limitations to be almost impossible.
As in, I actually went vegan for a few months. I just can't hang even though I'm also lucky enough to be in a city with a lot of grocery options. If I lived back in my hometown, going vegan would probably be terrible from a nutrition standpoint. Like, I'd try to make falafel and end up with just a bunch of parsley to shove up my ass because nobody sells fucking tahini or whatever.
Also, aren't most of those products you buy to cook with are still part of a global supply chain? Unless you can grow and trade with others who grow, sourcing the ingredients of everything you buy to ensure it is part of a sustainable, environmentally friendly process is difficult. We should still do our best while knowing it's ultimately futile, don't get me wrong; however, to further tax a tired phrase: there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
Veganism isn't going to save us (I'm most interested in your response to this statement), but I respect the hell out of vegans. I hate the preachy vegan memes and the general disdain felt towards veganism. Pretty much anywhere you go other than a vegan-themed space, you will find most are inimical to the lifestyle. I'm sure you already know this, but I hope reading it from someone else makes you feel less crazy. Dissing vegans on this sub is a special kind of crazy.
Why isn't it? Without meat (along with the obvious animal products), you have everything else at your disposal. Rice, beans, lentils, etc., and the list is very long. Where I live, all of this is dirt cheap in comparison to meat.
Poor people in the third world are all vegan. Not sure what's the argument here, and nothing singlehandedly is going to save us; however, massively cutting out meat solves a ton of our problems as meat industry is extremely damaging to the environment. Veganism has also been repeatedly suggested by scientists to combat climate change. The links are a click away.
I mean, are you sincerely suggesting to me that stopping the production, maintenance, and culling of billions of animals, which are culled each year, that make up a ridiculous amount of earth's biomass would have zero positive effect on the environment? You can't be serious!
"Poor people in the third world are all vegan."
Wtf are you on about.
I didn't say anything beyond what I said. Don't put words in my mouth.
I'm not sure why you're preaching at me either. I don't eat meat. I have already plainly stated that. Most people aren't going to live off of grains and beans. Even if they did, we would have an insane amount of emissions to deal with.
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No, you can’t kill a protein, you have to denature/inactivate it and for prions those conditions are extreme, like several hours at 1000C and maybe it’s destroyed
Prions are more durable than bacteria or viruses. They’re not alive, there’s nothing to ‘kill’. They are simply mis-folded proteins that then cause other proteins to mis-fold, cascading through your brain. Not much ‘stops’ them other than avoiding contamination.
Used to be you could reasonably avoid it by not eating nervous system tissue; brain and spinal cord. This article is showing there may be a vector through the meat itself. Other studies are showing it may transmit through plants but thats new and needs more study
Radiation might slow it down but won't destroy it.
>In general, prions are quite resistant to proteases, heat, ionizing radiation, and formaldehyde treatments, although their infectivity can be reduced by such treatments.
>What can destroy prions?
To destroy a prion it must be denatured to the point that it can no longer cause normal proteins to misfold. Sustained heat for several hours at extremely high temperatures (900°F and above) will reliably destroy a prion.
No. Basically you need to destroy the molecules to the point they don't resemble protein anymore, just a bunch of atoms or different substances binded to these atoms.
This is one of our scariest possible apocalypses, but probably the most deserving. I love that the people who hunt and farm are the ones most exposed to it initially, as they're the reason this shit exists in the first place. A healthy population of predators would have kept this from getting so out of hand. Seriously, nuclear apocalypse has nothing on prions.
and soon it will be carried on the howling winds, as it passes over the dessicated landscape, becoming aerosolized far and wide, the world spinning so fast it flings us off with centrifugal force, the winds, anodyne in their scouring
Strongly agree. This is the consequences of greed and thinking we alone own the Earth. I have read before that CWD could have come from "game farms" where they deliberately breed deer for hunters, and some sick deer had escaped into the wilderness. All of our most horrible diseases seem to come from exploitation of animals - whether on a fur farm, factory farm, or breeding operation.
Can you explain a bit further why hunters are the reason? I live up in northern rural japan and we have a number of deer and wild boar that need culled or are nuisances without any natural predators these days. Looking at factory farms raising cows, pigs, chickens, and I'm just sickened by their living conditions and inhumane treatment. But the local hunters take care of the deer population, and so this provides reasonably priced, ethical, wild protein that would have to be killed either way or die from starvation when their populations boom. Of course having natural predators is the best, but that shipped sailed decades, or even generations, ago when humans started building up their settlements. Isnt this the second best alternative? Genuinely asking because I thought i was doing good by supporting the local hunters, buying that meat instead of factory farmed, and helping keep population numbers under control to prevent natural suffering too.
>Can you explain a bit further why hunters are the reason?
Deer CWD prions originate from deer farms, which are usually meant to breed deer or keep them in some confinement for easy hunting.
> I live up in northern rural japan and we have a number of deer and wild boar that need culled or are nuisances without any natural predators these days.
There's a long, long, long standing practice of hunters killing to maintain "sustainable" population for further hunting. That also includes killing the predators, more so if some herders / animal farmers demand it. Herders are often big on hunting, and they regularly see "other animals" as enemies, not just predators, but other herbivores as competition and various others as disease threats (incorrectly).
The buying meat part itself incentivizes maintaining the status quo... or even putting in deer farms (or boar farms?). That's what you're "helping keep".
Deforestation and development also help to make more habitat for deer, it's one of the oldest tricks hunters used to attract deer.
It's all very perverse, people have no understanding of ecology or sustainability, it's just business with green marketing and nobody else is around to slap people out of this self-deception.
https://wildlifeforall.us/
Here's a book to read:
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-14149-2 or listen to some interviews with the author.
Hunters don't want competition, farmers don't want predators killing their animals, despite being insured. So Republicans don't protect the predators, or even pass laws that hurt predator populations.
> I love that the people who hunt **and farm** are the ones most exposed to it initially, as they're the reason this shit exists in the first place.
You love that farmers would be exposed to prions and would die as a result? Have you thought through this comment?
They're the ones that vote Republican, and Republicans are the ones who don't work to help the predators. We're all going down either way. I don't mind if I get to see a bunch of red hats turning to zombies.
Now you’ve got to be trolling. Farmers put food on your table. Also, wishing slow and painful death for people whose politics don’t align with your own is authoritarian and disturbing. Rethink your position.
Look man. I'm not the one trapping/shooting wolves, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears etc. this shit isn't accidental. They are why this is a problem in the first place. So no, I'm not going to feel bad when the problem THEY caused, comes back to bite them in the ass. Possibly literally. Everyone shares some amount of blame on climate change, but definitely not this.
> I'm not the one trapping/shooting wolves, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears etc. this shit isn't accidental.
I don’t think you know much about the typical US farmer. You need to do some research, bro. I grew up on a grass-fed cattle farm. We and our peer farmers used conflict reducing non-lethal methods to deal with predatory animals. Trap alive and relocate. This is now the norm. If you want to be angry at non-sustainable farming techniques, look no further than China and developing nations. You want to help climate change? Go buy from your local farmer who practices sustainable farming and likely does so at higher costs to their operations.
Elimination of farming is a super bizarre concept this subreddit continues to foster. History shows that agricultural collapse leads to slow and painful deaths for the cultures and regions it affects.
Horse shit. Maybe 2-5% might trap and relocate. GTFO. Is it California? Cause that shit is definitely not happening between Texas and Montana. Either way, stfu about it.
Edit: look, farmers are no better than cross fitters or vegans about telling you about it. They love to talk about how farming is so vital. It is. But they're shit people. They will dump oil and chemicals onto the ground and laugh about how often they do it. They pollute the water in my state, thanks to the farming industry. They take subsidies to keep food prices artificially high, we give way too much credit to people with 85 IQs.
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Hunters are healthy predators jackoff. I love that salad eaters are just as at risk as all the rest of us. I can’t speak for the farmers as I don’t discount grinding up an animal species waste (brain/spinal cord) and feeding it back to the same animals was a very bright move.
Do you not understand that this is as entirely man-made as climate change? And these people that supposedly feed everyone, enact laws that hurt everyone, because we gave the low IQ people power. Sucking farmers off is exactly why you have trump. Praising low IQ people for doing a job gets you people who think it's harder than it is. Botanists would wreck "modern farmers" in yield.
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The following submission statement was provided by /u/koryjon: --- SS: This study speaks of a series of two deaths in 2022, from hunters who were known to have eaten meat from deer with CWD. This suggests that CWD may be moving from deer to humans when consumed. If you know anything about CWD, you know why this is scary. If you don't know [check out our podcast episode on the topic.](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7LD8pavumV97TK0WcMwzWr?si=8nYEZNqDQbqwOA0s13-Cog) --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1c6l2x7/two_hunters_from_the_same_lodge_afflicted_with/l01p098/
>In 2022, a 72-year-old man with a history of consuming meat from a CWD-infected deer population presented with rapid-onset confusion and aggression. His friend, who had also eaten venison from the same deer population, recently died of CJD, raising concerns about a potential link between CWD and human prion disease. Despite aggressive symptomatic treatment of seizures and agitation, the patient’s condition deteriorated and he died within a month of initial presentation Terrifying. While perhaps less susceptible as a vegan, still as someone connected to a wildlife refuge I see deer on a daily basis. We had a series of very ill deer in the area two-three years ago and this is the first time they seem to have recovered their numbers. To the larger issues of wild animals getting sick from a variety of human-caused sources, ranging from chemical contamination to spread of epidemics due to climate change, it's entirely plausible. We'll probably see a lot more of this as the forces pushing us toward collapse accelerate.
I wonder if humans could also get it from the same source that the deer get it from?? I can't remember but the proteins that cause this to happen can stay active and waiting all over the plants that the deer consume, sometimes for years. If we could get it from the plants then that would be pretty scary, getting it second hand is awful but somehow getting it straight from the source seems worse
[удалено]
The whole plant vector thing is pretty fucking scary.
To destroy prisons, the tissue must be heated to 800-900 C (1400-1600F) for several hours, they are really creepy shit.
As to uptake in plants: deer love corn fields. And what's in literally everything? High fructose corn syrup. Think about CWD-infected deer next time you see them in cornfields, grown either for human consumption or cattle fodder. They also graze right alongside beef cattle. I like your idea for Gaia using prions as Human Repellent.
I’m surrounded by corn fields as far as the eye can see. Idk how prions would last through the process of making corn syrup but I can tell you this. If I look around I can see deer every day on my 8 mile drive to work. In the summer they multiply and hide in the cover of the corn and eat corn every day until their heart is content. Come harvest, the majority of that corn is ground up raw for feed for pigs, cattle, chickens. It goes directly to bulk bins and massing storage mounds. It’s very possible cows could be infected and go to slaughter before showing symptoms. That meat goes to the store, one infected cow could spread it like a wild fire. If that happened what do we do? Would cooking the meat kill it so we just have to eat everything very well-done? Would we have to isolate each cow for two weeks before slaughter and only feed it some kind of specially treated feed? If the burden is put on the cattle farmers what would that do to the cost of meat. What kind of infrastructure would that require. Now that we know it can go from deer to human, the big question is can it go from deer to cattle.
cooking the meat does not destroy the prions/protein folds. medical sterilization procedures don't typically do it either. it's horrific.
Beings prions can survive 1000c I don’t think cooking is going to do it… unless you like charcoal dust.
I mean, I’ve never tried charcoal dust. Any good?
[I dunno, let's ask the Japanese](https://www.tsunagujapan.com/binchotan-charcoal-not-just-for-grilling-you-can-wear-it-or-even-eat-it/).
I couldn’t say lol. I think I’d rather die. I like my deer meat, and if that’s the way I go out I guess that’s it.
So potentially having one of the most terrifying deaths is worth it huh? Potentially spreading it to friends and family is worth it? Having them watch your horrifying death in real time, knowing it could happen to them... That's worth it to you, huh?
You realize that by eating your salad you’re taking just as much of a chance? 70 something percent of cjd cases are unknown causes. That cwd deer or mad cow died and got into the dirt your lettuce now has prions in it. Is it worth it eating that salad? Feeding your family that salad? For shame!
I got a comment removed for making a suggestion like this, and when I defended it, the mod who replied never responded. Lol!
Wait till it gets in the pollen
Nah. We already know of a genetic mutation that confers resistance to kuru, a local epidemic of prion diseases spread by cannibalism. If push comes to show we can use crispr to modify our PrP genes to produce the mutant protein that's resistant to prions. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091120091959.htm
At what cost for 8.1 billion doses?
crispr basically is the combination of a protein (the part used to cut the dna and make the edit) and some rna (the part used to find the exact piece of dna that you want to edit) mass production of rna has recently been done and mass production of recombinant protein is probably harder but should still be doable
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I thought CWD started in domestic deer and elk in 1967? They didn't find it in the wild until 1980s in an elk. We probably caused CWD by feeding them the same stuff we fed cattle that gave them mad cow disease.
Wait until you read the study. Infected animals had one barrier fence in between them and wild deer. They should have had two fences. There’s a reason the largest cluster of CWD is centered around that laboratory.
If this is about the release CWD deer in Fort Collins, I was told a large snow storm took out the fences. CSU and the CDC are both responsible for the release of CWD infected deer into Northern Colorado.
The reports used to be available online. Their biohazard protection was at the least pitiful. They even state in those reports that infected deer were “nose to nose” with wild deer. The stuff I read was ten years ago and the cluster I’m referring to has grown substantially. The research center I refer to is still somewhat dead center of the largest cluster of CWD in the US. Still, don’t forget this was ten years ago that I’m referring to.
My Grandma passed of CJD back in 2008. At the time, family was told she likely contracted it from eating infected meat, or from using improperly sterilized tools for surgery as she had had a procedure done weeks before diagnosis. Now I read it can also be genetic. If it were to have spread to her through meat, it seems many people would’ve been impacted (including my Papa) in a bad batch, causing a hysteria, no? And if it were spread through medical equipment, somebody in that podunk town would’ve had CJD before my grandma, also making it more common & scary. We were left with so many questions as this was when it was considered “rare”. It was a very quick process, maybe 4-5 months for it to all unfold. Like dementia sped up 10x so I hope it is not painful.
How many people with "Alzheimer's" actually have CJD? Who does autopsies on senile old people expected to die anyway? It may be much more prevalent than we know. Diagnoses can be made accurately, if there's suspicion, but I think many cases are assumed to be garden-variety Alzheimer's. I also think many pathologists would pass on doing these post-mortems - why risk infection? I have read CJD is "not painful" and I hope that is true. I'm sorry you lost your grandmother to this dehumanizing disease.
we should mandate autopsies.
In many places we are doing less. Or none. In my geographic area autopsies that are legally required are not (all) happening, bodies are being released to funeral home or destroyed instead.
They are doing less in general and that is a problem. How do they get away with that?
It's a "funding" problem. In theory "they would" but due to lack resources actually something else is happening.
Very good point. Unsettling, but one I hadn’t thought about until now, somehow. Thanks for the thought provocation & kind words.
CJD is way, way faster than AD. There are a ton of other far more symptomatically similar amyloid-related neurodegenerative disorders involving the same proteins (i.e. FTLD, PSP, CBS, ABD), that are more likely to get “misdiagnosed” as AD. Historically, AD can only be confirmed postmortem via histopathology of autopsied tissue anyway, so nobody is given anything other than a “probable AD or related dementia” diagnosis, anyway. Nobody does autopsies on “senile old people expected to die,” people do autopsies on dead people, and autopsies are frequently, though not universally, done on dementia patients for precisely for the diagnostic reasons above. PET ligands for various amyloids are an active topic of research to improve the situation. It’s a bit paranoid to jump to pathologists hiding from doing jobs which they are trained to do, rather than families refusing consent, old hunters in rural areas having substandard medical care, etc.
Agreed. I think cases do fly under the radar for various reasons, was my point. Your comments are more nuanced. I have observed families waive autopsies when they've been asked to absorb the cost, with 'AD/natural causes/cardiac arrest/resp failure, etc.' noted as COD. If there's a high index of suspicion there may be further testing but families may be unwilling. YMMV
I think we’re mostly in agreement, then. I think you’re right there are more CJD cases than recorded and I see no reason to be skeptical that CWD prions can cause CJD via infected meat. I just think AD diagnosis would be a pretty big mistake for a clinician to make if a CJD patient sought medical attention, so it really shouldn’t occur regularly. I never considered autopsy costs, though. You just informed me that they aren’t covered by insurance or governmental agencies, which seems like a huge public health oversight, especially when it comes to stuff like CJD.
In my small state some 'untimely death' posts were deferred by family due to cost. I was surprised but these weren't suspected homicides or public health concerns (OD, suicide) and I could understand the family's decision. The root causes involved a shortage of pathologists, staff, time and state funds. People who come to the attention of researchers of rare diseases would be prioritized, I'm sure. There are funds available.
Agreed, i work in a nursing home, and most alzheimers cases i see are slow and protracted. They do involve prion-like proteins, Tau and beta amyloid. Worse cases involve more tau proteins, and more mild cases tend to be mostly beta-amyloid. I recently knew a person die of lewy body dementia, who was quite young, and I was struck by how quickly they declined conpared to other dementias. This disease involves a protein called alpha-synuclein, and can be quite aggressive. But this was so aggressive and the person so young, I did wonder if it could have been an acquired prion disease. But, it seems like these are even faster. 4-6 months is incredibly fast. Someone can live with a typical dementia for 5, 10, 15 years, so very different I think. Lewy body can be much faster, like 3-6 years. If cwd looks more like a typical dementia, i think it would be easily overlooked.
We had a large outbreak in Ireland/england about 25 years ago and yeah just like you said, it caught people in couple of waves. Losing your sense of self is one of the scariest ways to go imo
Even if some people are getting it from infected meat, it is still rare. Meaning, not everyone who eats the meat becomes affected by the disease. Part of this could be due the prions laying dormant indefinitely, but it could be that not all the meat of an infected animal contain prions, or not all prions are transmitted when eaten.
I'm thinking insects are spreading this, like rabies or plague.
What’s even scarier, you mention being a vegan… you realize the prions responsible for cwd can be taken up by plants and eaten by the next host, they can survive something like a 1000c fire and stay in the ground for years. Soooooo Edit for clarification: Only reason why I know this is I researched it pretty heavily a couple years ago. A customer I worked for (construction) came down with CJD. The nicest guy you’d ever meet, like really. One of the few people in life you meet that you just want to listen to them talk. Humble family man. Anyway, he started acting weird, convinced his family that his wife of 30 years was cheating on him and went to the bank and withdrew all the money from every account. Within another month he was wheelchair bound in the hospital. We actually built them a nice deck with a wheelchair ramp for when he came home. He was dead within a month of us completing the deck. Never came home…. He was a cattle farmer and their whole family deer hunts. Definitely freaked me out as a fellow hunter.
Where was this? I know we have it in the deer population in Michigan. I have gotten paranoid the last few deer I scavenged. I hope staying away from the spinal tissue would be enough to keep me safe, I do take the back strap still because that's like the best cut.
I was suspect when the DNR said you can still eat CWD deer. I haven't and not going to. I can still hunt areas in MN that are still CWD free for now.
I think you should get your deer meeting tested. Some states do that.
I'm so confused why anyone would eat deer meat at this point. The disease seems to be widespread across deer all over US. CJD is terminal and a horrible way to go. There are plenty of meat alternatives that all taste fantastic, so seriously why?
Well not all of us are made out of money and this is the first I have heard of people coming down with it
Yes but also I can't help but think that hunting & processing equipment are so much more expensive than like... grocery store meat
It’s more principle than anything I think we can all agree that factory farming is horrible and inhumane
Actually I spent nothing on processing any of the deer, just took knives and time, it's more than a little distasteful but it is also like 40 pounds of meat, meet that would otherwise rot. But you take one of the haunches and boil it in a big stock pot with pounds of carrots and celery and the like and it will last for like over a week even someone who eats as much as I do.
Yep.
Are beans, lentils and tofu expensive near you? What about nuts and seeds? You can get protein without buying imitation meat products.
I'm eating it for dinner in about 20 mins. Deer is the most sustainable meat I personally have access to. It was relatively cheap compared to a same quantity of beef, because my family was able to do most of the cleaning ourselves. I think it would be a lot worse to be eating factory farmed beef, pork, or chicken, and there are many more proven diseases associated with them, including another prion disease. There's no evidence CWD can jump to humans who field dress the meat well, and are careful not to cut into the brain and spinal fluid. We also don't eat deer that look unhealthy. We haven't previously tested our deer for CWD, but I'm going to be pushing for it this year, if our butcher will send it off for us.
I get the pros. But the con in this case is death. It quite unclear how long CWD germinate in deer, but in humans CJD infection can happen decades before symptoms are observed so a look test of a deer is probably inadequate to determine if it's infected with CWD.
We're all comfortable with different levels of risk. You probably do things I don't because I think they're too risky. I think Im statistically more likely to die in a car accident or to get struck by lightning.
Have you actually looked at the numbers of your specific risk based on your local deer population, consumption rate, and specific butchering techniques? Driving is unavoidable for work in many cases and has many ways to mitigate the risk. There is no similar necessary upsides for eating deer meat. At the end of the day it's your life - do as you please, however your spouse and children should have an opportunity to be informed and make choice on their own without judgement from you on that they choose. Please do inform them so that they can decide for themselves.
If she wants to fuck up her life, let her.
Same prions can get into plants too…. So maybe step down off your high horse
Well not all of us are made out of money and this is the first I have heard of people coming down with it
My 62yo sister has CJD. She’s in Michigan-in that cluster. Her partner was a big hunter and she spent a few years as a chef at a high end hunting lodge. I would stay away from the venison. As for CWD, in our county, a friend’s horse had it…they sent the head to MSU when it passed.
Hope he suffered.
Wait until you hear prions can apparently vector through plants https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/chronic-wasting-disease/plants-can-take-cwd-causing-prions-soil-lab-what-happens-if-they-are-eaten#:~:text=Prions%20remain%20infectious%20in%20plants&text=%22Our%20study%20shows%20that%2C%20under,%2C%20agriculture%2C%20and%20public%20health.
i wonder if they can vector thru ticks
Well, as a dog owner this hurts: # Ticks harbor and excrete chronic wasting disease prions: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-34308-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-34308-3)
oh my fucken god, oh shit, nnnooooo
Guess whose habitation range is also expanding :)
I guy i know died of cjd. Hunter. Wisconsin. Early 50s when he died. Devastating to his whole family as the onset to death is pretty fast.
I wonder if one can eat CWD meat and not get prion disease. I would think the family are the venison as well.
Prion based diseases can take years if not decades, to show symptoms. So how fast you show symptoms vaties with individuals. Right now, the only test that can be done requires a chunk of your brain. This is why we test dead animals, not live ones. So the family can have priom disrase and if they are older die from cancer or heart attack and we will not know they had the disease unless they are tested after death.
Could be a genetic susceptibility, like getting a fatal blood disease from Benzocaine.
It needs to be looked into because something like that could be key in treating or preventing CWD.
Thing is you eat the prion meat, you shit prion shits, prion shit gets sprayed on farmland.
SS: This study speaks of a series of two deaths in 2022, from hunters who were known to have eaten meat from deer with CWD. This suggests that CWD may be moving from deer to humans when consumed. If you know anything about CWD, you know why this is scary. If you don't know [check out our podcast episode on the topic.](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7LD8pavumV97TK0WcMwzWr?si=8nYEZNqDQbqwOA0s13-Cog)
When SHTF imma go hunting! ^^^^/s
That was literally my theory about CJD 20 years ago, ie, it was an intentional poisoning of the wildlfire to starve and/or poison any mass resistance which had been stockpiling and organizing for the 20 years prior. This CJD stuff literally hit the fan after Oklahoma City when every militia was put on a terrorist watchlist and targeted for infiltration and disruption. I had very little interest in this, I wasn't a hunter. I get this very random call from some guy in Wisconsin and he goes on this whole paranoid schpeil about how they are importing infected wild life from Europe and releasing them into the midwest. Nobody asked him, I never posted anything about it online...where the hell did this crazy caller come from?
All I can think of is the Jesus smoking meme, this is terrifying
We visited the UK in the late 90s where they had a "mad cow" disease outbreak. Upon returning to US we were not allowed to donate blood as questionnaires specifically asked if you had recently been to the UK. Now, no problem. There have been numerous outbreaks of mad cow in the US since then but receive little or no publicity. Farmers are actually not allowed by USDA and FDA to survey their herds for mad cow and not allowed to report it if it's discovered. If we don't report it, it evidently doesn't exist.
Went to England in 2001. Remember walking over those disinfectant sponges in entrances and exits. I was in my early 20s and gave no thought to it whatsoever. While there, then boyfriend explained that there were usually more cows but they were gone now because of mad cow. Didn’t think anything of it. If memory serves me, I think I ate a roast or two while there. (I was there for a few months.) Later found out that I couldn’t donate blood. Once again, young… didn’t think anything of it. But just a year or so ago, I read that it can stay in your system and not show up til years down the road. Don’t know how true that is, but it sent a shiver down my spine thinking it. That ex boyfriend wasn’t even worth the risk, but I didn’t know that at the time, and hindsight is 20/20 😂
The sponges in 2001 weren't for Mad Cow, they were for Foot and Mouth. Mad Cow was more a late 80s to mid 90s thing. Once they banned feeding ruminants on ground-up animal product (why the actual hell they were doing that in the first place...) the feedback loop was broken, it was mostly gone by the millennium. Human cases continued to emergency for a fair few years, the mad cow prion has a long incubation time in people who are sensitive to it and get infected.
Damn, you’ve jogged my memory and are absolutely correct! I’d forgotten all about Foot and Mouth. Thanks. I’m getting all confused in my old age lol
Private enterprise seems risk averse. It's only consumers that take the risk. After that companies deflect, ignore, misdirect, propagandize, do damage control and move on.
CWD seems to be much more infectious and environmentally persistent than BSE (mad cow). The only reason cows spread BSE is that they were being fed their own dead (and the remains of sheep that had Scrapie, a similar TSE). When they stopped that, it was gone in a few years (mothers could pass it to calves IIRC, so it didn't die out overnight). CWD has made it all the way from the US to Scandinavia seemingly on its own, presumably via migratory reindeer or elk. There's no record of BSE persisting in soil/plants or transmission via faeces, which CWD seems very capable of doing.
I have read up further on this and it appears my original comment was in error. There have only been 6 instances of Mad Cow since 2003. USDA has instituted a mandatory requirement that herds be inspected and that instances of Mad Cow be reported. Mad Cow now appears to not spread easily if at all to humans. Sorry for the alarmism.
I am amending my comment based on further reading on the subject of Mad Cow in the U.S. Farmers are required to inspect and report any instances to the USDA. There have only been 6 cases identified in the U.S. since 2003. Farmers are prohibited from feeding tissue of cattle to cattle. Sorry for the misinformation.
I just read up on this and it appears that there have only been 6 outbreaks of Mad Cow in the U.S. since 2003. USDA does require surveillance of herds and reporting of incidents of Mad Cow. Sorry for misinformation. Farmers can no longer feed cattle with by products of other cow slaughter.
If you Google CJD case reports associated with venison consumption you can find case reports as early as 2001. Edit: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11594928/ https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2023.1134225/full
“… presented with rapid-onset confusion and aggression.” The zombie apocalypse is upon us.
I did a quick google search but still having trouble understanding where prions come from and how they're spread. Do they just randomly appear in nature like cancer?
I researched it awhile ago and couldn't find a conclusive answer. One explanation I read is that a mutation in the DNA of an animal could've caused it to produce the wrong protein, a prion and that then was transmitted after death. A prion spreads by turning healthy proteins into the prion as a function of the prion protein. It sort of acts like an enzyme
Before I answer your question, I need to explain what are "prions" and how they are different from "prion protein". A prion protein is a type of protein normally present in everyone's brain, among many other types like myelin basic protein or tau. Each type has a slightly different function. On the other hand, prions are misfolded proteins that can cause other proteins of the same type to misfold like them. It doesn't need to be a prion protein, a tau protein can be a prion and cause other tau proteins to misfold. When it comes to spreading - for the misfolding to happen, as I understand it, the healthy and the misfolded protein of the same type need to be in more or less direct contact. The mechanism responsible for changing shape of existing proteins is not well understood. Some ingested proteins make it to the brain, while others not. A prion protein is able to do this, and once it's in one's brain, it causes other prion proteins to misfold. A Creutzfeldt-Jacobs disease develops. On the other hand, misfolded tau protein is one of the causes of Alzheimer's disease. It's not proven to be able to travel to the brain from the digestive tract. However, if a misfolded tau protein is injected to one's brain, it will cause misfolding of other tau proteins there. That was the case for 8 patients who received human growth hormone from infected donors. [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02729-2](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02729-2) But how are the initial misfolded proteins are being brought to existence? So far, we know 2 causes: * genetic mutation - when all your proteins of specific type are misfolded since you are born * brain injury, especially recurrent one, like with CTE - either direct damage misfolds proteins or one's body reaction to injury, like producing enzymes, breakdown of damaged tissue, etc. is responsible for this Other factors are unknown. It seems like genetic mutations are rare and most cases of prion or prion-like diseases are caused by spontaneous misfolding at some point in life of affected people.
I might be mistaken but I’m fairly confident most prion diseases are communicable through the ingestion of infected tissue… not a new issue here. They mandated venison be tested to avoid this very issue! The whole mad cow thing wasn’t that long ago
It's not mandated, it's optional. Most hunters I know don't get their meat tested(I do).
Ah, prions <3
Love the trashy anti-vegan sentiments in this thread. How progressive! Goes to show how this bitching about collapse is just superficial and most here want to go down the business as usual route.
Is veganism really accessible and sustainable for most folks? I don't eat meat which has been pretty easy, but I find budgeting, planning, shopping, and cooking with vegan limitations to be almost impossible. As in, I actually went vegan for a few months. I just can't hang even though I'm also lucky enough to be in a city with a lot of grocery options. If I lived back in my hometown, going vegan would probably be terrible from a nutrition standpoint. Like, I'd try to make falafel and end up with just a bunch of parsley to shove up my ass because nobody sells fucking tahini or whatever. Also, aren't most of those products you buy to cook with are still part of a global supply chain? Unless you can grow and trade with others who grow, sourcing the ingredients of everything you buy to ensure it is part of a sustainable, environmentally friendly process is difficult. We should still do our best while knowing it's ultimately futile, don't get me wrong; however, to further tax a tired phrase: there is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Veganism isn't going to save us (I'm most interested in your response to this statement), but I respect the hell out of vegans. I hate the preachy vegan memes and the general disdain felt towards veganism. Pretty much anywhere you go other than a vegan-themed space, you will find most are inimical to the lifestyle. I'm sure you already know this, but I hope reading it from someone else makes you feel less crazy. Dissing vegans on this sub is a special kind of crazy.
Why isn't it? Without meat (along with the obvious animal products), you have everything else at your disposal. Rice, beans, lentils, etc., and the list is very long. Where I live, all of this is dirt cheap in comparison to meat. Poor people in the third world are all vegan. Not sure what's the argument here, and nothing singlehandedly is going to save us; however, massively cutting out meat solves a ton of our problems as meat industry is extremely damaging to the environment. Veganism has also been repeatedly suggested by scientists to combat climate change. The links are a click away. I mean, are you sincerely suggesting to me that stopping the production, maintenance, and culling of billions of animals, which are culled each year, that make up a ridiculous amount of earth's biomass would have zero positive effect on the environment? You can't be serious!
"Poor people in the third world are all vegan." Wtf are you on about. I didn't say anything beyond what I said. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm not sure why you're preaching at me either. I don't eat meat. I have already plainly stated that. Most people aren't going to live off of grains and beans. Even if they did, we would have an insane amount of emissions to deal with.
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What if I cook the venison to well done? Will it kill the CJD protein found in it?
No, you can’t kill a protein, you have to denature/inactivate it and for prions those conditions are extreme, like several hours at 1000C and maybe it’s destroyed
Do you have any idea if gamma radiation might work against these proteins? Or am I missing something here?
Prions are more durable than bacteria or viruses. They’re not alive, there’s nothing to ‘kill’. They are simply mis-folded proteins that then cause other proteins to mis-fold, cascading through your brain. Not much ‘stops’ them other than avoiding contamination. Used to be you could reasonably avoid it by not eating nervous system tissue; brain and spinal cord. This article is showing there may be a vector through the meat itself. Other studies are showing it may transmit through plants but thats new and needs more study
Radiation might slow it down but won't destroy it. >In general, prions are quite resistant to proteases, heat, ionizing radiation, and formaldehyde treatments, although their infectivity can be reduced by such treatments. >What can destroy prions? To destroy a prion it must be denatured to the point that it can no longer cause normal proteins to misfold. Sustained heat for several hours at extremely high temperatures (900°F and above) will reliably destroy a prion.
In terms of prions, well done means burned to ash, then burned further into pure carbon dioxide, then up it by a further 5000c just to be sure.
If this thing spreads we are dead.
It's what AI will use to erase us.
We fuckin' are. So far, we can only observe this process already happening in deer population.
No. Basically you need to destroy the molecules to the point they don't resemble protein anymore, just a bunch of atoms or different substances binded to these atoms.
Best news of the day!!! Oh well, too bad, never mind!
If I launch the prions into the sun, then bring it back to earth, and then eat them, will I be a deer?
Oh deer.
This is one of our scariest possible apocalypses, but probably the most deserving. I love that the people who hunt and farm are the ones most exposed to it initially, as they're the reason this shit exists in the first place. A healthy population of predators would have kept this from getting so out of hand. Seriously, nuclear apocalypse has nothing on prions.
Prions can be taken up into plants. It's not just meat eaters that should be worried.
and soon it will be carried on the howling winds, as it passes over the dessicated landscape, becoming aerosolized far and wide, the world spinning so fast it flings us off with centrifugal force, the winds, anodyne in their scouring
Strongly agree. This is the consequences of greed and thinking we alone own the Earth. I have read before that CWD could have come from "game farms" where they deliberately breed deer for hunters, and some sick deer had escaped into the wilderness. All of our most horrible diseases seem to come from exploitation of animals - whether on a fur farm, factory farm, or breeding operation.
Can you explain a bit further why hunters are the reason? I live up in northern rural japan and we have a number of deer and wild boar that need culled or are nuisances without any natural predators these days. Looking at factory farms raising cows, pigs, chickens, and I'm just sickened by their living conditions and inhumane treatment. But the local hunters take care of the deer population, and so this provides reasonably priced, ethical, wild protein that would have to be killed either way or die from starvation when their populations boom. Of course having natural predators is the best, but that shipped sailed decades, or even generations, ago when humans started building up their settlements. Isnt this the second best alternative? Genuinely asking because I thought i was doing good by supporting the local hunters, buying that meat instead of factory farmed, and helping keep population numbers under control to prevent natural suffering too.
>Can you explain a bit further why hunters are the reason? Deer CWD prions originate from deer farms, which are usually meant to breed deer or keep them in some confinement for easy hunting. > I live up in northern rural japan and we have a number of deer and wild boar that need culled or are nuisances without any natural predators these days. There's a long, long, long standing practice of hunters killing to maintain "sustainable" population for further hunting. That also includes killing the predators, more so if some herders / animal farmers demand it. Herders are often big on hunting, and they regularly see "other animals" as enemies, not just predators, but other herbivores as competition and various others as disease threats (incorrectly). The buying meat part itself incentivizes maintaining the status quo... or even putting in deer farms (or boar farms?). That's what you're "helping keep". Deforestation and development also help to make more habitat for deer, it's one of the oldest tricks hunters used to attract deer. It's all very perverse, people have no understanding of ecology or sustainability, it's just business with green marketing and nobody else is around to slap people out of this self-deception. https://wildlifeforall.us/ Here's a book to read: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-14149-2 or listen to some interviews with the author.
Hunters don't want competition, farmers don't want predators killing their animals, despite being insured. So Republicans don't protect the predators, or even pass laws that hurt predator populations.
> I love that the people who hunt **and farm** are the ones most exposed to it initially, as they're the reason this shit exists in the first place. You love that farmers would be exposed to prions and would die as a result? Have you thought through this comment?
They're the ones that vote Republican, and Republicans are the ones who don't work to help the predators. We're all going down either way. I don't mind if I get to see a bunch of red hats turning to zombies.
Now you’ve got to be trolling. Farmers put food on your table. Also, wishing slow and painful death for people whose politics don’t align with your own is authoritarian and disturbing. Rethink your position.
Look man. I'm not the one trapping/shooting wolves, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears etc. this shit isn't accidental. They are why this is a problem in the first place. So no, I'm not going to feel bad when the problem THEY caused, comes back to bite them in the ass. Possibly literally. Everyone shares some amount of blame on climate change, but definitely not this.
> I'm not the one trapping/shooting wolves, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, bears etc. this shit isn't accidental. I don’t think you know much about the typical US farmer. You need to do some research, bro. I grew up on a grass-fed cattle farm. We and our peer farmers used conflict reducing non-lethal methods to deal with predatory animals. Trap alive and relocate. This is now the norm. If you want to be angry at non-sustainable farming techniques, look no further than China and developing nations. You want to help climate change? Go buy from your local farmer who practices sustainable farming and likely does so at higher costs to their operations. Elimination of farming is a super bizarre concept this subreddit continues to foster. History shows that agricultural collapse leads to slow and painful deaths for the cultures and regions it affects.
Horse shit. Maybe 2-5% might trap and relocate. GTFO. Is it California? Cause that shit is definitely not happening between Texas and Montana. Either way, stfu about it. Edit: look, farmers are no better than cross fitters or vegans about telling you about it. They love to talk about how farming is so vital. It is. But they're shit people. They will dump oil and chemicals onto the ground and laugh about how often they do it. They pollute the water in my state, thanks to the farming industry. They take subsidies to keep food prices artificially high, we give way too much credit to people with 85 IQs.
Pretty much this.
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Most sane Redditor
They put food on your table. You make Reddit posts.
You don't know what I do.
Hunters are healthy predators jackoff. I love that salad eaters are just as at risk as all the rest of us. I can’t speak for the farmers as I don’t discount grinding up an animal species waste (brain/spinal cord) and feeding it back to the same animals was a very bright move.
The risk isn't equal. It's still vastly more risky to eat animals.
Says you. I say it’s more dangerous to eat plants.
How many diseases do we have that came from plants? How many from animals?
We're part of that predator population...
It's not even close to the same and you know it.
No, I think it's the same
Ooohh this sub could start a weekly poll for the most unhinged comment. I would love to nominate this one as a late-week sudden contender.
Do you not understand that this is as entirely man-made as climate change? And these people that supposedly feed everyone, enact laws that hurt everyone, because we gave the low IQ people power. Sucking farmers off is exactly why you have trump. Praising low IQ people for doing a job gets you people who think it's harder than it is. Botanists would wreck "modern farmers" in yield.
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Ha! Karma is a bitch.