CWD - How do you handle a positive animal

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logan1080

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So my white tail came back positive with CWD. My question is what are people doing with all their equipment that would have been in contact with the prions? My knives, clothing, boots, gloves, everything my gloves touched etc etc could have been in contact with CWD prions during the harvesting process and those prions are extremely hard to kill. Do you typically just toss everything in the garbage (a very expensive choice)? My concerns basically come from a study in Calgary that suggests humans MAY not be totally immune from the disease.
 
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Hmm. Good question. We don't have CWD in BC yet so it's not something I've considered but I'm curious as to what others have been doing.
 
After watching "No Accident" CWD definitely is a concern.The disease can lie dormant in the ground for years before being picked up.IMHO I would want nothing to do with it. No it has not made the jump to humans yet, something that is not out of the realm .
 
I have seen mixed reports on whether or not bleach followed by an autoclave is actually effective in deactivating prions. Also, that is not a practical treatment for the other items that would require sterilization that are not steel knives.
 
I would just wash the knives and saws with bleach and water and not worry further. Despite the suggestion that it "might someday jump to humans", it hasn't yet, hasn't in 40 plus years, and you can bet plenty of people have eaten infected meat, and not a single transmission to humans has occurs. That research that suggests it "might" infect humans is entirely speculative, proved nothing concrete and the risk is extremely small because it's entirely speculative and based on research using mice. You'd be the first person in history to have been infected. There's a lot of other things that "might" happen to you, and this is one of the lower risk events.
 
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It's fairly new in Canada but been a big deal in some US states for a while. I haven't paid too much attention because it doesn't affect me (yet) bit I'm sure the US have come out with guidelines. I'm sure if you Google it or ask the question on a US hunting forum you'll have lots of recommendations
 
OP has very good question. From "olden days" information - prions are not "hard to kill" - they are not living things, so can NOT be killed - like saying you are killing a chunk of gravel in drive-way. Can not sterilize, can not dis-infect - so far as I know, there is no way to make prions "inactive". Wipe your knife or saw and now whatever you wiped with has them - and likely you did not get 100% of them off - so now contaminating next thing that you touch - like the next carcass.

Since CWD appeared in Sask in 1990's (?), has been stated by gov't numerous times that the prion is NOT affected by washing, by bleach, etc. - yet myriad people still do that.

Makes for really bizarre video that I saw from Saskatchewan DNR a few years ago - they want hunter to excavate / dissect into rear of brain to get specific area to be tested - so what if it tests positive? What is "hunter" supposed to do with all the "stuff" that he/she used to get that sample?
 
This article is interesting. Although it is a very direct and intense test, something eating CWD infected meat once is not, it still makes room for concern. When feeding my family I will definitely err on the side of caution. Also, CDW may not show itself in humans the same way it does in animals but it may show itself in other ways we may not yet understand (ex - increase Alzheimer's risk). Thanks for the correction on the "killing prions".

https://vet.ucalgary.ca/news/chronic-wasting-disease-may-transmit-humans-research-finds
 
Potashminer said:
OP has very good question. From "olden days" information - prions are not "hard to kill" - they are not living things, so can NOT be killed - like saying you are killing a chunk of gravel in drive-way. Can not sterilize, can not dis-infect - so far as I know, there is no way to make prions "inactive". Wipe your knife or saw and now whatever you wiped with has them - and likely you did not get 100% of them off - so now contaminating next thing that you touch - like the next carcass.

Makes for really bizarre video that I saw from Saskatchewan DNR a few years ago - they want hunter to excavate / dissect into rear of brain to get specific area to be tested - so what if it tests positive? What is "hunter" supposed to do with all the "stuff" that he/she used to get that sample?
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Bleach destroys prions on solid surfaces into which the prion cannot penetrate. A prion is just a protein. Proteins are damaged by bleach. You can't disinfect meat without destroying the meat, but you can disinfect solid objects like knives with bleach and water. There is no reason to believe the prion that causes CWD is any harder to destroy than any other prion.

https://www.nih.gov/news-events/new...en proven as,knives, saws and other equipment.
 
logan1080 said:
This article is interesting. Although it is a very direct and intense test, something eating CWD infected meat once is not, it still makes room for concern. When feeding my family I will definitely err on the side of caution. Also, CDW may not show itself in humans the same way it does in animals but it may show itself in other ways we may not yet understand (ex - increase Alzheimer's risk). Thanks for the correction on the "killing prions".

https://vet.ucalgary.ca/news/chronic-wasting-disease-may-transmit-humans-research-finds
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From the article:

Previous research into CWD has studied hunters who consume game in geographies with high prevalence of the disease in animals and found no evidence of human infection.

Hannaoui and her colleagues Irina Zemlyankina, Chris (Sheng Chun) Chang and Maria Arifin took CWD isolates from infected deer and injected them into “humanized” mouse models. Over a period of years, the mice developed CWD. Further, the mice were found to shed infectious prions in feces.

“The implication is that CWD in humans might be contagious and transmit from person to person,” says Gilch.
 
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Potashminer said:
OP has very good question. From "olden days" information - prions are not "hard to kill" - they are not living things, so can NOT be killed - like saying you are killing a chunk of gravel in drive-way. Can not sterilize, can not dis-infect - so far as I know, there is no way to make prions "inactive". Wipe your knife or saw and now whatever you wiped with has them - and likely you did not get 100% of them off - so now contaminating next thing that you touch - like the next carcass.

Since CWD appeared in Sask in 1990's (?), has been stated by gov't numerous times that the prion is NOT affected by washing, by bleach, etc. - yet myriad people still do that.

Makes for really bizarre video that I saw from Saskatchewan DNR a few years ago - they want hunter to excavate / dissect into rear of brain to get specific area to be tested - so what if it tests positive? What is "hunter" supposed to do with all the "stuff" that he/she used to get that sample?
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You can't KILL them perhaps, but you can denature them. Problem is it takes a lot to do that compared to killing microorganisms.
 
personally, I'd toss the deer. Bleach my knives and not lick my bloody clothes. No way I'd be throwing everything out just because it touched a positive deer, but I would take precautions with butchering equipment.
 
They are observing in the United States, that the deer are slowly becoming resistant to the prions. Lower and lower percent of the population are becoming capable of being infected.
 
Grizzlypeg said:
They are observing in the United States, that the deer are slowly becoming resistant to the prions. Lower and lower percent of the population are becoming capable of being infected.
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But the experts say they need to do a mass cull in this country... ya know, remove any animals that may be resistant.
 
The one maybe big problem is hunters shooting an animal out east and then bringing back home ...to the west

There's no safety check of positive or not when you drop off at bucther shop , that's WRONG ...
show proof before

CWD is spreading in the backs of trucks ... !!!!

I'm talking Alberta here
 
I’ve said it in other cwd threads, I’d eat it. Hell I don’t even bother testing mine, the ministry was doing testing and asking hunters to drop off heads for quite a few years and I was participating. They didn’t find any positive cases, which is good but I didn’t wait around to eat any of my deer kills.
 
well every researcher is crazy and you're right ...you don't want in BC
It is a problem and we all need to help and contain
 
I would bury the meat in a deep hole where other animals won't feed on it. Stuff like a hacksaw blade I'd throw out. The frame of the hacksaw (in my case a very old one) I'd pitch too. Too hard to clean. Stuff like my prized 30 year old Gerber hunting knife I'd clean thoroughly with soap and water. Perhaps consider even taking off the handle panels to get a 'deep clean". I won't do anything other than debone until I get results back but if I had put any meat through a grinder I'd thoroughly clean that, perhaps a la high pressure at the car wash. Any clothes I wore I'd just launder and wear again (rarely do I eat my hunting clothes). I'd run a few loads of water and soap in the machine after doing that.

As some have stated it has not jumped to humans (yet?) so the risk isn't extreme. My approach would definitely be to lower that potential of future ingestions of prions from cross contamination to as low as reasonably possible. It's no Marburg or Ebola, but it isn't insignificant either.
 
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