Bambi's revenge?

it's deer hunting season, which means all the good old boys are checking their rifles and other equipment, making plans to go out and get their deer as soon as deer hunting season opens.

When I lived in the mountains of Pennsylvania, they even closed school on the first day of the season. Most of our neighbors were blue collar workers, and it was more than just a sport for them: it was a source of cheap meat for them and their family (Yum! Venison kielbasa)

The bad news is that some deer in the USA are affected with Chronic wasting disease.

so far, there is no evidence that CWD will spread to humans, but scientists are worried because this disease is caused by a prion that is similar to the mad cow disease that spread to Humans a couple years back in the UK, where beef had been contaminated with brain/nerve tissue that contained the infectious agent.

Chronic wasting disease in deer/elk has been spreading in the USA.

so if you are a deer hunter in an area where there is CWD, how do you butcher the meat?

there are now reports that bleach might stop the spread by deactivating, but not killing, the prion of CWD. LINK

Bleach isn’t the cure-all for CWD. It only works on nonporous surfaces, but it’s the first thing scientists have discovered that inactivates the abnormal prion that’s wreaking havoc on cervid herds. What’s more, we know the concentration and exposure time for bleach to be effective. And it works any time, today or in three weeks, because, unfortunately, the prions don’t disappear.

Deer meat is probably not infectious (if it were, we would have seen an epidemic in hunters by now).

But please avoid eating squirrels, because there have been cases from eating squirrels in the USA. Wikipedia:

In 1997, a number of people from Kentucky developed vCJD. It was discovered that all had consumed squirrel brains, although a coincidental relationship between the disease and this dietary practice may have been involved.^[39]

Variant CJD, aka "mad cow disease" in humans, is known to be from a prion, but what about regular CJD?

Creutzfeldt–Jakob_disease

CJD is caused by a protein known as a prion.^[5] ... Most cases occur spontaneously, while about 7.5% of cases are inherited from a person's parents in an autosomal dominant manner.^[4] Exposure to brain or spinal tissue from an infected person may also result in spread.^[4] There is no evidence that it can spread between people via normal contact or blood transfusions.^[4] 

translation: You can't get regular CJD easily from contact with a patient with that disease (unless you are in contact with infected brain tissue: e.g. at an autopsy or in a funeral home).

There is a human to human prion disease: Kuru. And when vCJD started to be seen in the UK, someone with knowledge of Kuru suggested prions might be the cause of the terrible neurological diasese.

the prion family of neurological disease has variations that affect many animals: not all are infectious to humans.

To date, about 260 cases of vCJD, mostly in the United Kingdom, have been reported related to consuming beef but none in which the disease was acquired in the U.S.

Other TSEs are found in specific kinds of animals. These include BSE, mink encephalopathy, feline encephalopathy, and scrapie, which affects sheep and goats. Chronic wasting disease (CWD) affects elk and deer and is increasingly prevalent in certain areas in the United States. To date no transmission of CWD to humans has been reported. .

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a longer variation of this post can be found on my medical blog.