"Paul D. Butler" wrote:
>
> Think you have your facts a little wrong....chronic wasting disease in deer
> and elk....not "mad cow"

Yes, in deer and elk it's CWD. But as far as I understand it they are
all spongiform encephalopathy. They call it "CWD" in deer, "scrapie" in
sheep, and "BSE" in cattle. And as far as I can tell they call it CJD in
humans no matter whether it came from cows, deer, squirrels, or unknown
causes.

>second, the odds of contracting CJD through "mad
> cow" here in the US of A are a whole lot higher than one in a
> million...probably more like one-in-a-billion.

That article said one-in-a-million for CJD in general, not just from BSE
sources. That's 1-in-1,000,000 at any particular time, meaning a
lifetime risk of 1 in only 10,000.

> No documented cases of anyone dying from contracting CJD from consumption of
> deer and/or elk........the situation definitely warrants attention and a
> person needs to keep up with the news about the disease and any possible
> transfer to humans through consumption but unfounded fear is misplaced.

Part of that is that it is very difficult to document. In the case of
those three young hunters who died of CJD, the CDC had no way to test
the deer and elk that they may have eaten. They were all hunters, and
the article said there was evidence they had all eaten elk from the CWD
areas. Regular "sporadic" CJD normally occurs in much older people, so
these guys are unusual in all being young. The other notable things they
had in common were being hunters and possibly having consumed elk from
Colorado or Wyoming. I think you'd be crazy to eat deer or elk from the
CWD areas. You would be greatly increasing your 1 in 10,000 risk of CJD.
Here's the link to that article again, and some other TSE links:
http://www.mercola.com/2002/aug/28/mad_cow.htm
http://w3.aces.uiuc.edu/AnSci/BSE/TSE_Other_Animals.htm
http://w3.aces.uiuc.edu/AnSci/BSE/TSE_Scrapie_Sheep.htm
http://w3.aces.uiuc.edu/AnSci/BSE/Human_TSEs.htm