Email
Print
FeedChronic Wasting Disease -- Pa.’s Agriculture Department a disappointment
.jpg)
Chronic wasting disease is now within Pennsylvania’s borders. With CWD already in New York, Maryland and West Virginia, Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Carl Roe shared his concern with me last Monday.
“It wasn’t a matter of ‘if,’ but rather, ‘when’ CWD would get here.”
The “when” occurred about a month ago, when the first case of CWD was confirmed in a captive doe that died in Adams County. Since then, a second deer -- a buck -- from the same quarantined farm in New Oxford, Pa., has tested positive for CWD. Three other facilities in three counties have also been quarantined since early October, because the sick deer had passed through all of them.
Subsequently, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture pinpointed at least 25 additional deer farms in the Keystone State that received deer from one of the original four farms identified in October. The quarantine list grows almost daily and now involves deer farms in 16 counties. Some deer had even been sold out-of-state.
Unfortunately, our infection with CWD follows a similar pattern to what has occurred in many other states -- this disease was first discovered in a captive deer. Pennsylvania is home to about 1,100 deer and elk farmers -- some big operations, some small.
The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is the controlling agency when it comes to captive deer raised by deer farmers. The Game Commission is in charge of wild deer.
I am more than a little unhappy with the quality and quantity of effort from officials at the state Department of Agriculture. They botched the effort to euthanize (for CWD testing) the remaining nine deer at the New Oxford facility, with one doe escaping on Oct. 16. As of this writing, this possible CWD carrier is still on the loose.
Another doe from the New Oxford farm was sold to Freedom Whitetails (Blair County) and then sold again to a deer farmer in Huntingdon County. It has also escaped. The suspect doe is wearing a purple ear tag with a number 4 on it and it has been loose -- possibly spreading CWD prions in its urine -- since early summer.
Travis Rhodes, the owner of Freedom Whitetails, has offered a $200 reward to anyone who kills this doe. According to Rhodes, if it tests negative for CWD, his facility will be removed from the quarantine.
Where is the oversight?
To me, the ag department’s quarantine seems almost meaningless, because no one is watching. The department’s press secretary commented to me, “We trust that our deer farmers are being ethical about this.”
My bank trusts that its customers are ethical, too. That is why they have a thick vault, security cameras and bulletproof glass at the drive-up window, and they ask for identification. Hunters would like to see the same level of concern from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.
Are we asking too much?
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a sister disease to mad cow (bovine spongiform encephalopathy-BSE) -- just as Alzheimer's and CJD (Creutzfeldt Jakob) are similar prion diseases. www.alzheimers-prions.com/
Experts warn that farmed deer infected with CWD
pose significant risks to wild deer and elk in the same area:
digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1717 2007
"Potential for disease transmission from Fence‐Line Contact Between Wild
and Farmed Cervids"
The so-called 'species barrier' between deer and livestock and deer and humans, is NOT foolproof:
USDA/Agricultural Research Service (ARS) found that 86% of livestock
IC inoculated with CWD prions from infected white-tailed deer went on to
develop prion disease.
www.ars.usda.gov/research/publications/publications.htm?seq_no_115=277212
" . . . the species barrier from cervid to humans is prion
strain-dependent and humans can be vulnerable to novel cervid prion strains"
www.jbc.org/cgi/doi/10.1074/jbc.M110.198465
"Our results have far-reaching implications for human health, since they indicate that cervid PrPSc can trigger the conversion of human PrPC into PrPSc, suggesting that CWD might be infectious to humans."
www.jbc.org/content/286/9/7490.full
Back in 2004, the CDC expected CWD to manifest only as Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease. But Nobel Laureate Stanley Prusiner recently pointed out the many
different strains of prion diseases:
". . . they (prions) are actually capable of
multiplying in what he terms "alternative" shapes, with
each shape responsible for a different type of dementia."
www.alzheimers-prions.com/pdf/JUNE2012PRUSINER-ETAL-
ALZHEIMERSISAPRIONDISEASE.pdf
CDC article on the many hunters and game eaters who have developed prion diseases:
www.alzheimers-prions.com/pdf/CDC-PRIONDISEASEVICTIMS-.pdf
Pennsylvania might want to reevaluate its enthusiasm for sewer sludge spreading: The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified infectious human and animal prions as emerging pathogenic contaminants of concern in sewage sludge "biosolids".:
www.sludgevictims.com/prions/PRIONS-EPA-EMERGINGCONTAMINANTSINSLUDGEBIO.pdf
In the July 3, 2010 issue of VETERINARY RECORD, renown prion expert Dr. Joel Pedersen, Univ/Wisconsin, stated: “Finally, the disposal of sludge was considered to represent the greatest risk of spreading (prion) infectivity to other premises.”
Helane Shields, Alton, NH hshields@tds.net www.alzheimers-prions.com/
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
PENNSYLVANIA 2012 THE GREAT ESCAPE OF CWD INVESTIGATION MOVES INTO LOUISIANA
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2012/11/pennsylvania-2012-great-escape-of-cwd_14.html
kind regards,
terry
From: xxxxxxxxx xxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 4:03 PM
To: 'Flounder9@verizon.net'
Subject: Deer information
Terry - The animal moved on a certificate of veterinary inspection prior to the discovery of the positive CWD herd in Pennsylvania. Louisiana animal health authorities are investigating the movement of this deer that was epidemiologically linked to the index Pennsylvania herd, into their state. We are awaiting their response.
Since the announcement of CWD positives in Pennsylvania there are no states permitting the movement of imported Pennsylvania deer and the Department of Agriculture is not permitting the movement of any deer into the commonwealth.
-xxxxxx
snip...
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture | Press Office 2301 North Cameron Street | Hbg PA 17110 Phone: 717.787.5085 | Fax: 717.787.1039 www.agriculture.state.pa.us
====================
I thank the Dept of Penn Ag for that kind reply and information.
I pray that CWD has not been transported to Louisiana from Pennsylvania, via the great escape of CWD 2012 into Pennsylvania from captive game farming. ...tss
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
PENNSYLVANIA 2012 THE GREAT ESCAPE OF CWD
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot.com/2012/11/pennsylvania-2012-great-escape-of-cwd.html
What a bunch of misinformed dings!
Im so dissapointed in the PGC how could there be enough oversight to stop poaching. The PDA does a good job in its oversight dispite your opinion. It was the PGC sharpshooters who let the deer excape the facility. Farmers will do the right thing and if on quarentine they have strict regs and paper trail to keep in line. Some need to worry more about your trusty PGC and make sure they are in line.
The PGC answers to no one and does/says what the want...no agency should have that kind of non control.
Get your facts straight before attacking the PDA