As if we didn't suspect this for a very long time now.  The beef producers   
   have been trying to convince us that their product is safe too - but the link   
   to Mad Cow and Alzheimers is there and has been for years.     
      
   Time for the federal government to step up big time and stop meat producers   
   and processors from 'self scrutiny and control'.  They cannot be trusted to do   
   their own monitoring because their profits are too large to ever trade them   
   for problem exposure.   
      
   Considering how many people also like to feed wild game to their  pets, this   
   should be a concern for them too.   
   ____________________________   
   Mar 21, 2019   
      
   The game-meat crisis most Canadians have never heard of   
      
   Chronic wasting disease in deer, elk, reindeer, caribou and moose is on the   
   rise in three Canadian provinces. No human has yet been infected, but are   
   governments taking the threat seriously?   
      
   Since 2010, the Saskatoon Wildlife Federation’s “Hunt 4 Hunger” program   
   has donated some 32,000 lb. of frozen, ground game meat—deer and moose—to   
   the Saskatoon Food Bank.  It’s accepted with gratitude, says Laurie   
   O’Connor, the food bank’   
   s executive director.  The facility serves 19,000 people per month and   
   doesn’t generally have access to high-quality protein: “It’s great to be   
   able to offer it during hunting season,” she says.   
      
   Over that time frame, however, another form of food-chain vulnerability has   
   touched the much-lauded program: rising concerns about the safety of game meat   
   due to chronic wasting disease (CWD), a fatal, infectious prion illness that   
   affects deer, elk,    
   reindeer, caribou and moose.   
      
   First reported in Colorado in the ’60s, CWD was classified a transmissible   
   spongiform encephalopathy in 1978, making it a sister disease to scrapie in   
   sheep; bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or “mad cow disease,” in cattle;   
   and Creutzfeldt-Jakob    
   disease in humans.   Often sensationalized as “brain-eating zombie deer   
   disease,” CWD causes a horrific demise—weight loss, fatigue, clumsiness,   
   excessive thirst, drooling, bursts of aggression before collapse and eventual   
   death. Incidence is    
   rising in Europe, in 26 U.S. states, and in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec.   
      
   It’s known to spread animal-to-animal, soil-to-animal, mother-to-offspring   
   and from exposed plants or other surfaces including tools or surgical   
   instruments. (Prions are extraordinarily resilient, known to withstand   
   powerful disinfectants, radiation,    
   freezing and heat above 590° C.)   
      
   No human case of CWD has been identified, but transmission to humans cannot   
   be excluded, according to an ongoing study on macaque monkeys led by Stefanie   
   Czub, head of the virology section at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.   
      
   The primates developed CWD when fed muscle meat from CWD-infected deer that   
   appeared healthy. Preliminary results in 2017 prompted a Health Canada   
   advisory that “CWD, un der specific experimental conditions, has the   
   potential to cross the human    
   species barrier.”   
      
   Health Canada, like the World Health Organization, recommends people not eat   
   meat or other parts of a CWD-infected animal (deer antler velvet, a popular   
   nutritional supplement, can also contain CWD prions, according to the Centers   
   for Disease Control and    
   Prevention).   
      
   The government of Saskatchewan’s “Chronic wasting disease information for   
   hunters” web page advises that “hunters do not eat, or distribute for   
   human consumption, the meat or other parts from animals that have not been   
   tested or that are found to    
   be CWD-infected.”     
      
   Government testing of an animal’s lymph nodes or brain stem for CWD can take   
   up to eight weeks and is free.  It’s also voluntary.     
      
   The website emphasizes the danger posed by CWD in its instruction for meat and   
   other parts from a CWD-infected animal to be “double-bagged and taken to a   
   permitted landfill to prevent consumption by animals and minimize   
   environmental contamination    
   from CWD prions.”   
      
   All meat donated to the food bank has been CWD-tested, Michael Kincade, the   
   Saskatoon Wildlife Federation’s executive director, tells Maclean’s. Most   
   comes from animals seized or harvested by provincial conservation officers,   
   which is tested.  Meat    
   from animals received from hunters is ground, then set aside pending assurance   
   from the hunter—on an honour system—that the animal tested negative.   
   Equipment is sanitized after each animal is processed, Kincade says.  So far,   
   there have been no    
   positive CWD cases.   
      
   CWD has been a big issue for hunters for a number of years, Kincade says,   
   though there is no mention of CWD on the federation’s website.  “There   
   still isn’t any proof that it can be transferred to humans or hurt us,” he   
   says, allowing he’s not    
   familiar with the primate study.  “We’ve probably been eating CWD-infected   
   animals for a while, but there’s nothing to prove that, either.  There   
   doesn’t seem to be much you can do at the moment.”   
      
   Surveillance testing of some 2,000 deer by the Saskatchewan government over   
   the 2018-19 hunting season found 349 CWD cases and nine new zones of CWD   
   infection, says Iga Stasiak, a provincial wildlife health specialist.   
      
   (A January 2019 Alberta government report found 147 cases of CWD in more than   
   2,300 animals.)  Testing is not 100 per cent conclusive, with false negatives,   
   adds Stasiak, who notes the government is working on strategies to reduce   
   transmission.   
      
   CWD needs to be seen as a crisis now, says Darrel Rowledge, a former forester   
   and director of the Alliance for Public Wildlife, who has been studying—and   
   raising alarm—about CWD for more than two decades.  He itemizes the risks   
   beyond species    
   extinction—to agriculture, to First Nations communities, to food security,   
   to economies, to international trade.     
      
   Last fall, Norway announced it wouldn’t accept hay or straw from North   
   America unless it’s certified as coming from a province or state that does   
   not have CWD.   
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   
      
   “Waiting until people are infected or allowing the levels of consumption   
   that we are allowing is untenable,” Rowledge says, calling CWD “the   
   largest, most contagious, most persistent bio-massive infectious prion in   
   global history” given its many    
   transmission modes.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)