American Cervid Alliance

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Publishes WOW's CWD Study Response

July 19, 2017

 
 
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Opinion
July 16, 2017
 
Editors:
Wisconsin authorities are skeptical that Chronic Wasting Disease is linked to an increase in Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans, noting that health care providers are simply looking for CJD more commonly. Interestingly, the same could be said of CWD-when authorities started looking for it, they've often found it. How much should we worry about CWD when it's been quietly around for decades without ever affecting humans?  
 
It's important to remember that there are many animal diseases that don't affect people, and vice versa. The World Health Organization notes that humans and sheep have lived together for centuries, and yet scrapie-CWD for sheep-has never infected people. The same is true, to date, with CWD. This isn't the case with BSE which has been known to infect humans and yet less than 0.1% of the cattle in the United States are tested for BSE.

Hunters should use common sense. Don't eat animals that appear to be sick, whatever the cause may be. And it can't hurt to get a harvested deer tested for CWD. But worrying about CWD is about as productive as worrying about getting hit by lightning.
 
Sincerely,
Laurie Seale
Whitetails of Wisconsin

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