Most of the coal miners and blue collar guys hunted, and one frequently saw the deer hanging out from a tree in the back yard or from a ceiling beam of the front porch (and if you looked, sometimes an illegal extra deer or two in the unheated garage). It was a way to stretch your income by supplying meat to the table, and of course, it was a macho thing for hunters. Given the number of guys (and a few gals) out there, it is a wonder that more people don't get shot accidentally.
But anyway, there exists something called "Chronic wasting disease" in deer and elk in some states of the USA. And it is a potential time bomb if the disease starts to spread to human beings.
long discussion here at Coolgreenscience:
this could be scary, given that a similar disease Mad Cow Disease, spread to humans. but that was partly from butchers who contaminated the meat with brain /spinal cord tissue that had the prions that caused the disease.
Most hunters I knew didn't use the brain, but on the other hand, most were amateur butchers who cut up the meat themselves (although local butchers would do it for you, or if it wasn't cold enough outside to preserve the meat, they would keep the carcass for you in their walk in freezer.)
The CWD in deer/elk has been in the USA for fifty years, but so far no major outbreak of brain deterioration in hunters, although I have read a few case reports pointing out that clusters of disease might be related to eating wild meat. LINK is an article that suspected a link, but didn't find evidence of it at autopsy.
but doctors are still worried about it, especially since the disease in animals is spreading, and there is a worry it might decimate the deer population in some areas.
as for eating venison: Well, most hunters don't eat the brain, and it was meat contaminated with brain/spinal cord tissue that caused the "mad cow disease" epidemic.
Most hunters would either discard the brain or give it to their dogs, and mainly eat the muscle part of the deer, so it's probably safe.
I mean, most wouldn't eat a sick deer, but since deer have CWD for a couple years before symptoms, I suspect a lot of folk have eating deer meat from animals who were infected. But as I noted so far only a few questionable cases of the human version of CWD (i.e. CJD) have been in people who ate venison and docs suspected there might be a link, but so far no proof.
The original article pretty well summarizes the problem:
“CWD will continue to affect a treasured natural resource and might become a human health issue,” says Richards, “We’re not sure we can get ahead of it, but there’s also vast areas of the U.S. where no evidence of CWD exists. It’s up to us to do all we can to keep it that way.”
as for the practice of feeding deer offal including brains to the dogs: Don't worry: Dogs can't get CWD so they probably won't spread it to you.
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