This so-called zombie deer disease gets its nickname from the symptoms it causes. A year or so after an animal becomes infected, according to the CDC, it can begin stumbling and acting listless and confused. Infected animals can also lose weight rapidly, hence the “wasting” part of the disease’s name.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease, which means it’s caused by proteins (called prions) that attack the brain and spinal tissue. BSE is also a prion disease, as is a human illness called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). In deer and elk, CWD spreads through bodily fluids, either directly or through contamination of soil, food, or water. There’s no treatment or cure for CWD, and it’s fatal to animals who become infected. Some animals develop the telltale symptoms ,while others die without developing any symptoms at all.
About Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
Sponge-like lesions in the brain tissue of a CJD patient.Prion diseases, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, occur when prion protein, which is found throughout the body but whose normal function isn't yet known, begins folding into an abnormal three-dimensional shape. This shape change gradually triggers prion protein in the brain to fold into the same abnormal shape.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease causes a type of dementia that gets worse unusually fast. More common causes of dementia, such as Alzheimer's, Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia, typically progress more slowly. Through a process scientists don't yet understand, misfolded prion protein destroys brain cells. Resulting damage leads to rapid decline in thinking and reasoning as well as involuntary muscle movements, confusion, difficulty walking and mood changes.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is rare, occurring in about one in 1 million people annually worldwide.
Experts generally recognize the following main types of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease:
Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease develops spontaneously for no known reason. It accounts for 85 percent of cases. On average, sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease first appears between ages 60 and 65.
Familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is caused by certain changes in the chromosome 20 gene coding the biological blueprint for prion protein. People who develop familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease do so because they inherited the genetic changes from a parent. Familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease accounts for about 10 to 15 percent of cases. It develops, on average, at a younger age than sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, with some genetic types appearing as early as ages 20 to 40.
Acquired Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease results from exposure to an external source of abnormal prion protein. These sources are estimated to account for about 1 percent of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease cases. The two most common outside sources are:
Medical procedures involving instruments used in neurosurgery, growth hormone from human sources or certain transplanted human tissues. The risk of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from medical procedures has been greatly reduced by improved sterilization techniques, new single-use instruments and synthetic sources of growth hormone.
Meat or other products from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease"), recognized in the mid-1990s as the cause of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). Scientists traced this new type of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to consumption of beef from cattle whose feed included processed brain tissue from other animals.
The CDC also recommends that hunters take the following steps when hunting in areas with CWD, “to be as safe as possible and decrease their potential risk of exposure to CWD:”
Do not shoot, handle or eat meat from deer and elk that look sick or are acting strangely or are found dead as roadkill.
When field-dressing a deer, or handling the meat, wear latex or rubber gloves.
Minimize how much you handle the organs of the animal, particularly the brain or spinal cord tissues.
Do not use household knives or other kitchen utensils for field dressing.
Check state wildlife and public health guidance to see whether testing of animals is recommended or required. Recommendations vary by state, but information about testing is available from many state wildlife agencies. (The Pennsylvania Game Commission recommends testing of deer killed in known CWD areas of the state.)
Strongly consider having the deer or elk tested for CWD before you eat the meat.
If you have your deer or elk commercially processed, consider asking that your animal be
processed individually to avoid mixing meat from multiple animals.
If your animal tests positive for CWD, do not eat meat from that animal.
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