View Single Post
Old January 26, 2001, 11:45 AM   #1
dZ
Senior Member
 
Join Date: May 31, 1999
Location: Exiled, Fetid Swamp, DC
Posts: 7,548


http://www.smh.com.au/news/0011/01/world/world4.html

A US relative of mad cow disease puts hunters
at risk

By SANDRA BLAKESLEE in New York

In a situation likened to the early days of the mad cow epidemic in Britain,
when people were told it was safe to eat beef because the disease could
not infect people, some biologists are saying American hunters should be
warned about a similar malady infecting wild deer and elk in Colorado and
Wyoming.

The malady is called chronic wasting disease. While no cases of human
disease have been directly traced to deer or elk meat, there is a growing
body of evidence to suggest it could happen.

And as the hunting season is in full swing, a number of scientists are calling
for more action to warn hunters about the potential problem.

Mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease are among a bizarre class of
prion-caused disorders known as transmissible spongiform
encephalopathies, or TSEs.

However, transmission is difficult to track because people or animals
typically develop the disease a long time after they have been exposed to
it.

Until a few years ago, for example, it was widely believed that each animal,
including humans, had its own unique form of TSE and that the diseases
rarely passed between species.

When mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, first
appeared in Britain in the mid-1980s, government agriculture and health
officials initially offered assurances that it could not spread to people.

Now, however, up to 80 Britons have died of a related brain disorder they
are believed to have contracted from consuming affected meat.

It is not known how many others may ultimately fall ill and die.

Eventually, the British Government destroyed almost 4 million cattle to stem
the spread of the disease. But last week a three-year investigation into the
causes of the epidemic severely criticised the Government's "culture of
secrecy" in not being more honest with the public, and for using "an
approach whose object was sedation".

Wildlife officials in Colorado and Wyoming, where the chronic wasting
disease is firmly entrenched along their shared border and is estimated to
affect 1 per cent of elk and from 6 per cent to 15 per cent of deer, insist not
enough is known about the problem to cancel hunting permits.

A veterinarian at the Colorado Department of Wildlife, Dr Mike Miller, said:
"We don't think the problem is a big deal."

Areas where the disease is endemic were not closed to hunting, nor was
there a need to close them, he said. "If people choose to hunt there it is
their choice."

Instead, hunters are advised by State wildlife officials to avoid obviously
sick animals and to use rubber gloves when cutting up all carcasses,
particularly brain and nerve tissues, where the infectious prions apparently
concentrate.

But people familiar with hunting practices in those areas say hunters are
not taking even these precautions.

Mr Arnold Hale, a retiree from Livermore, Colorado, said: "Around here,
people are not knowledgeable about the disease or just don't care.

"When you talk to hunters most don't trust the Government. I don't know
anyone taking precautions.''

The New York Times
dZ is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.03871 seconds with 8 queries