Some epidemiologists have expressed concerns that chronic wasting disease, sometimes called “zombie deer disease,” could be transmitted from deer to people as it spreads in wildlife populations near Yellowstone, triggering a new reaction from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) primarily affects free-ranging deer, moose, and elk, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. Officials have said there have been no infections among humans, although there have been sporadic warnings from researchers over the years about the disease possibly spreading to people.
“We’re dealing with a disease that is invariably fatal, incurable, and highly contagious,” Cory Anderson, a researcher at University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research, told the Guardian in a recent article, noting that CWD is on the rise in the Yellowstone park area. “Baked into the worry is that we don’t have an effective, easy way to eradicate it, neither from the animals it infects nor the environment it contaminates.”
The disease has gained recent attention because moose, deer, and elk populations could infect livestock such as cows, other mammals, birds, or humans. Researchers have said that just because there is no “spillover” case from deer to humans doesn’t mean it cannot happen.
In response to Mr. Anderson’s claims, the CDC told media outlets this week, “To date, there have been no reported cases of CWD infection in people.”
The agency has recommended that hunters in areas with reported CWD take precautions, including having venison tested before consumption. The Epoch Times has contacted the CDC for comment Wednesday.
“These studies raise concerns that there may also be a risk to people,” the CDC website says. “Since 1997, the World Health Organization has recommended that it is important to keep the agents of all known prion diseases from entering the human food chain.”
Mr. Anderson noted that a bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, “outbreak in Britain provided an example of how, overnight, things can get crazy when a spillover event happens from, say, livestock to people,” adding, “We’re talking about the potential of something similar occurring. No one is saying that it’s definitely going to happen, but it’s important for people to be prepared.”
Dr. Thomas Roffe, the former chief of animal health for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, told the Guardian that a recent CWD case detected in a mule deer in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming put “CWD on the radar of widespread attention in ways it wasn’t before,” adding, “It’s a disease that has huge ecological implications.”
He did not mention whether the disease could spread to people. However, he suggested ending state- and federal-operated “feed-grounds” for elk, where over 20,000 animals are given alfalfa to survive the winter months—a practice that some wildlife management groups condemn.
“The science of what’s needed to help slow the spread of CWD is clear and has been known for a long time,” Dr. Roffe said. “You don’t feed wildlife in the face of a growing disease pandemic.”
Outside of the U.S., CWD has been found in animals in three Canadian provinces, according to reports. And outside of North America, it’s been discovered in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and South Korea.
The disease was first discovered in Colorado in 1967, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s website.
