My first encounter with deer meat was in my high school woodshop class, where I found my teacher boiling the head of his latest kill on the stove in our building. He pulled on one of the antlers, exposing the skull of a buck with flesh falling back into the pot, reminiscent of a zombie falling to pieces. I was never a hunting or deer meat-eating kind of girl but after that encounter, I was permanently put off by it.
After reading recent news reports on “zombie deer disease,” my lack of love for venison has only grown stronger. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) causes deer to stumble, drool, be more aggressive toward humans and waste away until they die. These symptoms are classic signs of a zombie, aside from the lack of a cannibalistic hunger for brains.
Prions, which are misfolded proteins, are said to be the cause of this fatal disease in the deer population. Once a deer is infected with this prion, it will gradually deteriorate over the course of several months, spreading it to nearby populations. But to me, the craziest part about this disease, isn’t its zombielike symptoms but the fact that there is a possibility it can spread to humans. With all the zombie movies and shows I’ve seen over the years, from “Pet Sematary” to “Resident Evil,” the chance of this happening in the real world seemed almost impossible. The fact that it could start with deer? Even more so.
The disease is hypothesized that it could possibly infect humans by eating infected deer meat. Despite the common idea that once you cook something it is safe to eat, in the case of prion-contaminated meat, it is not.
In an article published March 5 in the Minnesota Post Bulletin, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota is quoted as saying, “It is probable that human cases of chronic wasting disease associated with consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the
years ahead.”
A study is being conducted by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on the infection capabilities of CWD. So far in their investigation, researchers have observed that it can infect hamsters and mice, but they aren’t sure how yet. It makes me wonder if hunters and avid venison eaters should take precaution and stop the practice altogether.
Although there have not been any reported cases of the disease being seen in humans, due to the recent news reports and its spreading to 24 states since being identified in the 1980s, people are concerned about the chance of it affecting humans. I don’t bet, but despite the lack of hard evidence for it, I believe that there is a small chance of this “zombie deer disease” expanding to our species.
Another prion-based disease that scientists, too, thought could never be found in humans is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a version of mad cow disease that causes neurodegeneration.
