> >          No one is exactly sure how mad elk disease
> >spreads. At first, transmittal through blood seemed likely,
> >as from mother to fawn. But CWD has moved between adult
> >animals at game farms, leading scientists to conclude that
> >it can be spread through saliva or simple contact. Also, the
> >rates of transmission are higher in areas where animals have
> >the most opportunities for contact. Wisconsin's concentrated
> >population of 1.7 million deer interact freely with each
> >other, and scientific modeling suggests CWD could tear
> >through our deer herd devastatingly fast.
> >
> >          Despite the danger, Wisconsin and other states are
> >relying on only sporadic testing and a system of voluntary
> >compliance. It's a system that some say has more holes in it
> >than a CWD-infected brain.
> >
> >          At present, Wisconsin game farm owners-even those
> >harboring elk and deer brought in from farms with known
> >cases of CWD-do not have to call a veterinarian if a deer or
> >elk suddenly dies or acts strange. They're also not required
> >to inform the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) or
> >the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection
> >(DATCP) if animals escape into the wild.
> >
> >          "The lax attitude is pretty shocking," says John
> >Stauber, a Madison activist and co-author of Mad Cow U.S.A.
> >To protect people and deer, Stauber argues for an immediate
> >importation ban for game farms, plus programs of testing and
> >surveillance. He suggests both DATCP and DNR aren't taking
> >such measures because, as the regulators in charge, they
> >don't want to find the CWD he thinks is likely already in
> >state.
> >
> >          "It's in their bureaucratic interest to not
> >[actively] look for CWD in the game farms," says Stauber.
> >"Because if they find it, who's to blame?"
> >
> >          In the wild and especially out west, chronic
> >wasting disease is spreading fast. Northeastern Colorado
> >documented its first case in 1981. By the mid-1990s,
> >samplings of mule deer brains showed 3% to 4% testing
> >positive for CWD. Within a few years, the rate was 8%, and
> >now Larimer County, the center of the endemic area, has a
> >15% rate of infection among mule deer. It's also being found
> >in deer and elk in Wyoming.
> >
> >          "Fifteen percent of a wild population of animals
> >with this disease is staggering," says Dr. Thomas Pringle,
> >who tracks CWD-type diseases for the Sperling Biomedical
> >Foundation in Eugene, Ore. "It's basically unheard of."
> >Moreover, he adds, "this is an unusually virulent strain...
> >with highly efficient transmission mechanisms.
> >
> >          CWD could eventually spread to Wisconsin on its
> >own, animal to animal. But that would take decades. Game
> >farms, though, provide a mechanism to cut through all that
> >time and distance and drop CWD smack in the middle of the
> >state.
> >
> >          An open-records search by Isthmus reveals that the
> >first shipment of farm elk from areas with CWD in the wild
> >occurred in 1992, with 66 Colorado elk going to a game farm
> >in Plymouth. In April 1998, DATCP was informed that a
> >Bloomer game farm had purchased one elk from a Nebraska farm
> >later found to be CWD-infected. This prompted a Sept. 15,
> >1998, memo from Steven Miller, head of the DNR's Lands
> >Division, to Secretary George Meyer, with copies to DATCP
> >chief Ben Brancel and Gov. Tommy Thompson. In it, Miller
> >recommends that Wisconsin follow the lead of Montana (which
> >found CWD on two game farms) and place "a moratorium on the
> >importation of all game farm animals.... At present it
> >appears the only way to help assure the disease does not
> >spread into Wisconsin."
> >
> >          But the moratorium was never put in place, so it's
> >possible that even more elk potentially carrying CWD are now
> >in state.
> >
> >          Instead of a moratorium, Wisconsin has opted for
> >testing. It is among 12 states and two Canadian provinces
> >that currently test deer for CWD. Last year, the Wisconsin
> >DNR began testing road- and hunter-killed deer in 1999
> >within a five-mile radius of game farms that have brought in
> >elk from CWD-infected areas. Test areas include all or part
> >of Fond du Lac, Dodge, Jefferson, Sheboygan and Washington
> >counties. All of the approximately 250 brains examined in
> >1999 came back negative; this year, 500 to 600 deer will be
> >tested.
> >
> >          Meanwhile, DATCP is asking owners of game farms
> >that have animals from herds known to have cases of CWD
> >infection to voluntarily enter a surveillance program. The
> >agency's top veterinarian, Dr. Clarence Siroky, argues that
> >voluntary compliance makes more sense than a moratorium
> >because, ban or no ban, game farm operators "are going to
> >find a way to bring these animals into the state. We don't
> >have police patrols and impregnable borders to keep anything
> >in or out."
> >
> >          With voluntary compliance, Siroky says, at least
> >there are records of animals entering the state. So if CWD
> >or other diseases are discovered, the animals can be traced
> >back to their original herds and other farms they may have
> >been at. "It's better to know where the animals are coming
> >in from," he insists.
> >
> >          Siroky may be right that an importation ban would
> >result in some game farms smuggling in animals. But
> >currently, game farmers can bring in any deer or elk, even
> >those from known CWD-infected areas, so long as they can
> >produce a health certificate showing the animal's been
> >tested. The problem is that no test exists to find CWD in
> >live animals. Animals can carry CWD for years and still look
> >healthy, so some of the 370 elk shipped into Wisconsin
> >between 1996 and 1999 from CWD areas could have the disease.
> >The odds are even higher for animals purchased from farms
> >later found to have CWD.
> >
> >          Wisconsin has approximately 100 deer or elk farms
> >and they're big business. On the Internet, prices for elk
> >calves start at $1,500, and breeding bulls go for up to
> >$20,000. Some farms sell venison and the velvet that peels
> >from new elk antlers (considered an aphrodisiac in Asia).
> >Others offer "hunts" costing between $1,000 and $5,000 for
> >trophy deer, to more than $10,000 for bull elk with massive
> >antlers.
> >
> >          Given these economics, it's reasonable to question
> >why anyone with a suspicion of CWD in his or her herd would
> >call in state regulators or a vet. A farm with a proven CWD
> >case, confirms Dr. Robert Ehlenfeldt, DATCP's director of
> >Animal Disease Control, would be shut down indefinitely.
> >
> >          And if a problem develops on a Wisconsin game
> >farm, there's no guarantee that's where it will stay. Dr.
> >Hurley says even fenced-in animals have easy nose-to-nose
> >contact with wild and other farmed animals. Besides, as the
> >DNR's chief of special operations Thomas Solin has
> >documented, many game farms are not secure. Gates are
> >sometimes left open. Fences rust and break, rot and topple,
> >get crushed by fallen trees. Even if game farm animals don't
> >escape, such breaches allow wild deer to get in, mingle with
> >the farmed deer and elk, then leave.
> >
> >          Unlike other diseases, there's no test for CWD in
> >living animals because it doesn't create an immune system
> >counter-response, detectable through blood analysis. You
> >can't kill CWD and related diseases by cooking the meat. One
> >test Stauber recounts in Mad Cow U.S.A. found that scrapie,
> >a sheep form of CWD, stayed viable after a full hour at 680
> >degrees Fahrenheit. Most disinfectants don't kill these
> >diseases, either, and they can exist in the soil for years.
> >
> >          And while diseases like mad cow and mad elk do
> >have some trouble jumping from species to species, it can
> >happen.
> >
> >          This May, Byron Caughey of the National Institutes
> >of Health announced that he had converted human brain
> >materials with mad-elk-contaminated brain matter at rates
> >roughly equal to the transfer between mad cow and humans.
> >Says Dr. Pringle, referring to Caughey's work, "CWD may not
> >transmit that easily, but the rate isn't zero." Pringle
> >notes that the test Caughey used has been a very reliable
> >proxy to determine transmission possibilities for other
> >diseases, including mad cow.
> >
> >          Once they jump the species barrier, transmissible
> >spongiform encephalopathy diseases mutate to fit the new
> >host and are then passed on rather easily within that
> >species. Unfortunately, says Pringle, no one is trying to
> >determine if CWD has jumped into people as Creutzfeldt-Jakob
> >disease. Making matters more difficult is the fact that the
> >disease can incubate for decades before symptoms are seen.
> >
> >          In states with CWD-infected deer, thousands of
> >people have undoubtedly been exposed to CWD-infected
> >venison. A February 1998 Denver Post article tells of one
> >hunter who's venison tested positive for CWD. By the time he
> >was notified, his meat had already been ground up and mixed
> >with meat from hundreds of other deer for venison sausage.
> >
> >          With AIDS, Pringle notes, there was a definite
> >overreaction, with people initially afraid to even shake
> >hands with people infected with the virus. Looking at the
> >CWD situation in Colorado, he says there's been complete
> >underreaction.
> >
> >          "It's like, 'Oh, what the hell. Nobody's died
> >yet--so keep eating the venison!'" Pringle worries that if
> >the disease is found in humans, it will after years of
> >spreading through the human community.
> >
> >          Looking over documents obtained by Isthmus through
> >its open-records request, Stauber says DATCP is behaving
> >more like a lobbyist for the game farm industry than an
> >agency bent on protecting Wisconsin's people from CWD. He
> >points to DATCP's Cervidae Advisory Committee as a prime
> >example.
> >
> >          In a Nov. 11, 1998, memo from Siroky to DATCP
> >secretary Ben Brancel, Siroky notes that the committee is
> >needed to "obtain information from the public concerning
> >disease regulation" of farmed deer and elk, and "to help
> >formulate action plans for importation requirements,
> >prevention and control" of CWD. But of the 12 people Siroky
> >nominates, one's a DNR warden, one's a DATCP employee, and
> >the other 10 are game farm owners. And two of these owners
> >were among those DATCP knew had purchased elk from farms at
> >high risk of having CWD.
> >
> >          "There's no significant input from anyone else,"
> >says Stauber. "Farmers, deer hunters and consumers are all
> >left out. Meanwhile, the government's failing to take all
> >necessary precautions to alert the public to this potential
> >health threat."
> >
> >
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