Ray, Very interesting. Hadn't noticed it at all.
(Post what you like. You'll never catch up with Karen!!!) Harry --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ray wrote: >Has anyone heard anything about this? > >Ray Evans Harrell >------------------------------------------------------------------- >Who's to Blame for Mad Deer? >Brian McCombie, The Progressive >August 1, 2002 >Viewed on August 12, 2002 > >------------------------------------------------------------------- >The helicopter rises up over the ridge line, the noise of the rotors >scattering the targets below. But the snipers in the doorway already have >their scoped, high-powered rifles locked in, and the bullets fly until the >targets pitch forward, kicking and writhing in their death throes. >The latest battlefield description from Afghanistan? No. It's the next >battlefield from the rolling, wooded hills near Madison, Wisconsin. The >snipers are employees of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. The >targets? White-tailed deer, potential carriers of a deadly disease that may >also infect people. It's called Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), and it's >steadily spreading across North America. >"CWD clearly originated in northeastern Colorado and now has ended up >spreading far and wide into many states and two Canadian provinces," writes >John Stauber, a Madison, Wisconsin, activist and co-author of Mad Cow U.S.A. >(Common Courage, 1997), which examines England's Mad Cow nightmare and >whether it could happen here. >The disease, he claims, is traveling faster and more effectively than nature >could ever accomplish. He suspects this is due to the interstate >transportation of game farm animals. And he blames the expansion of the >disease on the game farm industry and state agricultural agencies that act >more as game farm patrons than as regulators. >The outbreak is causing near hysteria in rural Wisconsin. The state plans to >kill as many as 50,000 deer in the southcentral part of the state, and deer >hunters everywhere are left to wonder whether their venison is safe to eat. >Research and anecdotal evidence suggests it is not. And that's scary news >for the 14 million deer hunters around the country. >Both Mad Cow and Chronic Wasting Disease are kinds of Transmissible >Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE). These diseases aren't viral or bacterial, >yet somehow they transform or "fold" proteins in brain cells called prions. >When enough infected prions deposit themselves in the brain, microscopic >ruptures form in the brain cells. Prior to death, behavioral changes become >apparent. >As the disease progresses, infected cattle become very agitated, kicking >violently with no provocation. They also have trouble eating and swallowing, >and usually lose weight. Similarly, deer with Chronic Wasting Disease stop >eating. Their resulting emaciated state gives the disease its name. They >also shy away from fellow animals, begin to slobber uncontrollably, and walk >in circles. >As with all TSEs, Chronic Wasting Disease has no cure and is always fatal. >The only way to test for it in elk and cattle is to kill them and examine >brain samples under a microscope. A live test for deer was recently >developed using a tonsil biopsy, but it's not yet clear how accurate this >is. >The human version of TSE is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (pronounced >Croytz-feld Yawkob). People with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease experience >symptoms similar to Alzheimer's, including memory loss and depression, >followed by rapidly progressive dementia and death usually within a year. >While Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is rare (humans literally have a >one-in-a-million chance of getting it), over the last few years three young >deer hunters (from Utah, Oklahoma, and Maine) died of the illness. >Those deaths sparked an investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and >Prevention, largely because the three hunters were younger than 30, which is >extremely rare for Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (68 is the median age for >deaths resulting from the illness). While it found no connection to Chronic >Wasting Disease-infected venison, the Centers for Disease Control and >Prevention also had no way to test deer these hunters had already consumed. >The agency did kill and test some deer where the victims of the disease had >hunted. All the animals tested negative. There was evidence, though, that >all the hunters were exposed to elk from Colorado or Wyoming, possibly from >areas where Chronic Wasting Disease is prevalent. However, it was impossible >for center investigators to know if those particular elk were infected. >Dr. Thomas Pringle thinks it's very likely that Chronic Wasting Disease can >harm people. A molecular biologist who for five years covered TSE diseases >for Sperling Biomedical Foundation in Oregon, Pringle notes that game >agencies in Colorado and Wyoming have spent the last two decades assuring >hunters there was no scientific proof that anyone had ever died from eating >Chronic Wasting Disease-tainted venison. Yet, Pringle says, the research on >Chronic Wasting Disease's potential human health risks is virtually >nonexistent. He contends these agencies took their position to protect a >multibillion dollar industry that revolves around deer and elk hunting. >The research that does exist isn't encouraging. In September 2000, the >European Molecular Biology Organization published a study that found that >deer prion materials infected with Chronic Wasting Disease converted human >prion materials in test tubes at very low rates. "Chronic Wasting Disease >and [Mad Cow conversions happened] at about the same rate, in this proxy >test, for humans," Pringle observes, and says similar tests alerted British >scientists that Mad Cow beef could potentially infect people. To date, more >than 100 people have died from a Mad Cow-derived form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob >Disease. >In early April 2002, Byron Caughey, who directed the European Molecular >Biology Organization research, told a Wisconsin newspaper that while the >risk of people contracting infection from a Chronic Wasting Disease deer is >probably low, "it's not a risk I'd want to take." The head of the Wisconsin >Department of Natural Resources, Darrell Bazzell, publicly admitted his >agency couldn't guarantee that meat from deer infected with Chronic Wasting >Disease was 100 percent safe to eat, leading one Milwaukee food bank to stop >accepting venison. >The epicenter of Chronic Wasting Disease is the Foothills Wildlife Research >Facility in Fort Collins, Colorado, operated by the state's Department of >Wildlife. In the mid-1960s, the Department of Wildlife ran a series of >nutritional studies on wild deer and elk, releasing them when various >projects were completed. Soon after the studies began, however, Foothills >deer and elk began dying from a mysterious disease. It was not identified as >Chronic Wasting Disease until 1980. >The Foothills facility also held a number of sheep with scrapie, the sheep >form of TSE, which has existed in North America since 1947, and which >Pringle thinks was transferred into the deer and elk from contact with the >sheep. He believes Chronic Wasting Disease "must be an extremely virulent >strain" to jump the species barrier. >"That's the theory," says Michael Miller, a veterinarian and Chronic Wasting >Disease expert at the Foothills facility. Yet he also says it's possible the >disease existed naturally in wild deer and elk, and infected animals were >brought into Foothills for nutritional studies and began spreading the >illness among the closely confined animals. >In 1981, the first wild animal (an elk) with Chronic Wasting Disease was >found in Larimer County, Colorado, near the Foothills facility, and the >disease moved out into northeastern Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. >Today, the disease is found in more than 15,000 square miles of Colorado >alone. However, testing by the Colorado Department of Wildlife in the 1980s >found Chronic Wasting Disease at under 1 percent in elk and 2 percent or >less for deer. But the rate of infection picked up speed in the mid-1990s. >Pockets in Colorado today have deer at 7 to 8 percent infection rates, while >15 percent of the deer in Larimer County have tested positive for Chronic >Wasting Disease. >In 1996, an elk at a Saskatchewan game farm was found to have the disease. >By 2001, the province had 29 game farms under quarantine, and eventually >nearly 8,000 elk were slaughtered, with more than 100 testing positive for >Chronic Wasting Disease. >"We traced back all the Chronic Wasting Disease exposures to a single elk >from South Dakota," says Dr. George Luterbach, chief veterinarian for the >Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That elk arrived in the province in 1989 >and died in 1990. Chronic Wasting Disease was eventually found on the South >Dakota farm, and Luterbach thinks an animal from there infected the >Saskatchewan game farm, which then bought and sold elk, seeding the disease >into other operations. Citing Canada's privacy act, Luterbach won't release >the name of the South Dakota farm. >The year 2000 also saw Saskatchewan record its first wild deer with Chronic >Wasting Disease, followed the next year by two more. Darrel Rowledge, >director of the Alliance for Public Wildlife, a conservation group based in >Calgary, says, given that Chronic Wasting Disease is virtually >indestructible (disinfectants and ultra-high temperatures don't prevent >transmission) and always fatal, historical and scientific records should >reveal its presence in North America before the 1960s. They don't, so >Rowledge, like Stauber, blames game farms for transporting the disease. >"Scientists knew that privatization, domestication, and commercialization of >wildlife was going to cause horrendous disease problems," he says. But in >many state legislatures and agricultural agencies, "There was this >presumption that [game farmers] should be allowed to exist until it was >proven that they were doing something wrong." >Chronic Wasting Disease was also discovered on game farms in Alberta, >Colorado, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and South Dakota from 1997 to >2001. By the time Wisconsin announced its problem, Nebraska and South Dakota >had infected wild deer, too. >But Wisconsin is arguably in the most dire straits. Elk appear the least >susceptible to Chronic Wasting Disease, with mule deer (a western cousin of >white-tails) next in line. All the evidence suggests that white-tailed deer >most easily contract and spread the illness. The exact route of infection >between animals isn't known, but Miller says casual contact passes the >disease. This could include deer feeding together, touching noses, or >stepping in each others' feces and urine. >Most deer in Colorado and Wyoming are mule deer, very thinly dispersed >(usually fewer than 10 animals per square mile), and much less sociable than >white-tails. But Wisconsin has an estimated 1.6 million white-tails, often >at 70 or more per square mile, and in frequent contact. Pringle thinks >Chronic Wasting Disease could rip through the deer population east of the >Mississippi with virtually nothing to stop it. >In February, Wisconsin reported that three deer killed by hunters the >previous fall had Chronic Wasting Disease, its first appearance east of the >Mississippi River. After further testing found another fifteen deer with >Chronic Wasting Disease approximately 20 miles west of Madison, the >Department of Natural Resources announced it would try to eradicate all the >deer (estimated at more than 25,000) in the 360-square-mile area, figuring >fewer deer will slow the spread of the disease. The Department of Natural >Resources began giving away free hunting permits this June, vowing a >near-continuous hunt in the fall. The state legislature and the governor >also gave the agency the legal right to shoot deer from roads and, if >necessary, from helicopters. >The Resources Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives held Chronic >Wasting Disease hearings in mid-May, and Wisconsin Governor Scott McCallum, >who had asked the federal government for $18.5 million to fight the disease, >testified that Chronic Wasting Disease could destroy Wisconsin's wildlife >and hunting heritage. While Wisconsin Congressmen chimed in supportively, >not everyone was a booster. >Representative Jay Inslee, Democrat of Washington, asked McCallum about a >1998 Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources memo on Chronic Wasting >Disease-exposed elk coming onto Wisconsin game farms. Why hadn't Wisconsin >taken more precautions to keep out the disease? he asked. McCallum insisted >state agencies had taken the appropriate steps, but Inslee doesn't buy it. >"There were at least two specific instances where other states had informed >Wisconsin that Chronic Wasting Disease-infected [or exposed] herds had sent >elk to Wisconsin," Inslee says. "Even in light of this, Wisconsin didn't >require mandatory testing and inspection of game farms." >"It's important to note that there's never been a case in Wisconsin of >Chronic Wasting Disease in an elk ranch or game farm," says Henry Kriegel of >a Montana public relations firm that represents a large game farm >association. Wisconsin's discovery of Chronic Wasting Disease in wild deer, >he argues, has "become an opportunity for those who oppose game farming to >get media attention and create leverage for their position against game >farming." >The first part of Kriegel's statement is true. Yet he doesn't reveal the >whole picture. >For example, the voluntary monitoring plan had only 40 of the state's 272 >elk farmers signed up by the summer of 2000, and just 80 by May 2002. >Wisconsin's 570 deer farmers ignored the voluntary program almost entirely. >Flaws with no mandatory testing were apparent in October 2001, after >Colorado discovered a Chronic Wasting Disease outbreak on a number of game >farms. At that point, 450 elk had been shipped to game farms in other >states, including 19 to Wisconsin. The Department of Agriculture, Trade, and >Consumer Protection either quarantined or killed and tested these elk, >except for two elk which the department wasn't able to locate. They had died >before the investigation, and no one is sure where the carcasses are. A >third carcass was recovered, but it was so decomposed that a brain sample >couldn't be taken. >Game farm regulations concerning Chronic Wasting Disease vary by state, but >in the past someone could import nearly any animal as long as it had a >health certificate. That process could find detectable diseases like bovine >tuberculosis, but did little for the nontestable Chronic Wasting Disease. >Once a state finds Chronic Wasting Disease, though, the whole game changes. >South Dakota and Nebraska, for example, now require game farms to import >animals only from operations certified as Chronic Wasting Disease-free for >at least five years. Wisconsin put such a regulation into effect following >its discovery of the outbreak. >Many states recently closed their borders to elk or deer from states with >Chronic Wasting Disease. But, as with much of the regulatory framework >surrounding game farms, this was done only after years of interstate trade >in game farm animals. >The U.S. Department of Agriculture, in September 2001, declared a Chronic >Wasting Disease emergency nationwide and announced its intention to wipe out >the disease. With agriculture its regulatory focus, though, the department's >efforts are concentrated on the game farm industry, not the spread of the >disease in the wild. Among its initiatives is to provide indemnity monies >(about $3,000 per elk) to game farms found with Chronic Wasting Disease >where the standard management procedure is euphemistically called >"depopulation." That is, slaughtering all the animals. >The U.S. Department of Agriculture took a more proactive approach this >spring, actually buying up the stock of fifteen game farms in Colorado, even >though no Chronic Wasting Disease was ever found in these facilities. The >department then "depopulated" them to the tune of approximately 1,200 elk. >No word yet if game farms in other places with Chronic Wasting Disease, like >Wisconsin, will now be bought up, too, or if the Department of Agriculture >will also try to eradicate Chronic Wasting Disease in the wild -- or if it >can. >In most states, game farms are regulated by agriculture departments, though >that wasn't always the case. In Wisconsin, for example, the Department of >Natural Resources oversaw game farms until the mid-1990s, when the state >legislature and then-Governor Tommy Thompson shifted responsibility to the >Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, a move the game >farmers applauded. >Rowledge says these regulatory shifts across the United States weren't >accidental. In the 1970s, more and more potential game farmers wanted to set >up operations so they could sell elk velvet (the soft material that peels >off newly formed antlers, which is marketed as a nutritional supplement and >aphrodisiac), host "canned" hunts where animals are shot inside these farms, >and market elk meat. >Despite tall fences, game farms have a well-documented history of captive >and wild animals intermingling. For state wildlife biologists, the big >concern was game farms bringing in diseases. "Whenever you move an animal," >Rowledge says, "you're moving all the diseases and parasites the animal has >in it and on it. You have no choice." >So state wildlife agencies generally opposed these farms. "When there was >resistance," Rowledge says, "the game farmers sought to put themselves under >the jurisdiction of bureaucracies that were friendly to their ideas." >Stauber thinks the federal government must step in with an eradication >program or Chronic Wasting Disease will expand even further across the >continent. >"If I'm right, we've got a hell of a crisis on our hands," he says. "My hope >is that growing public outrage over Chronic Wasting may light a fire under >the feds to address a problem they've ignored for a decade and a half." >Brian McCombie is a freelance writer based in Marshfield, Wisconsin. He >specializes in wildlife and environmental issues > > > >--- >Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. >Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). >Version: 6.0.381 / Virus Database: 214 - Release Date: 8/2/2002 ****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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