The Mississippi State Department of Health issued the following statement.
Chronic Wasting Disease – Public Health Recommendations
The Mississippi State
Department of Health (MSDH) is working with the Mississippi Department
of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks (DWFP) in response to the first
confirmed case of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD)
in a white-tailed deer in Mississippi.
Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a neurological (brain and nervous system) disease found in
deer, elk, moose and other members of the deer family. It is similar to “mad cow” disease in cattle and scrapie in sheep, and is 100 percent fatal to the animal.
The disease has not
been known to cause infection in humans, and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) has never reported a case of CWD in people.
However, MSDH State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul
Byers says certain precautions are still important to prevent possible
infection.
“While there has never been a
reported case of CWD in people, if it could spread to humans it would
likely come from eating an infected animal, like an infected deer,” he
said.
As a precaution, the CDC now
recommends that hunters harvesting deer from areas with reported CWD
should strongly consider having those animals tested before eating the
meat.
However, CWD cannot be positively detected in muscle tissue such as processed meat.
“Since there is no test that can safely
rule out CWD infection in processed meat, MSDH is recommending hunters
consider not eating venison from deer harvested in an area with known
CWD, said Dr. Byers.
To be as safe as possible and to prevent any potential human exposure to CWD, the following precautions are recommended:
·
Out
of an abundance of caution, the Mississippi State Department of Health
recommends that hunters consider not eating venison from deer harvested
within the CWD Management Zone
as defined by the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and
Parks.
·
Do not shoot, handle or eat meat from a deer that appears sick.
·
Wear latex or rubber gloves when field dressing your deer.
·
Bone out the meat from your animal. Don’t saw through bone, and avoid cutting through the brain or spinal cord (backbone).
·
Minimize the handling of brain and spinal tissues.
·
Wash hands and instruments thoroughly after field dressing is completed.
·
Avoid
consuming brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils and lymph nodes of
harvested animals. (Normal field dressing coupled with boning out a
carcass will remove most,
if not all, of these body parts. Cutting away all fatty tissue will
remove remaining lymph nodes.)
·
Avoid consuming the meat from any animal that tests positive for the disease.
·
If
you have your deer commercially processed, request that your animal is
processed individually, without meat from other animals being added to
meat from your animal.
22 comments:
Once again Kingfish rips off a story from a simple, local, group Facebook page. First, the Heath Hall situation, now this one.
KF, thanks for the post. 8:46, get a life.
Chronic Wasting Disease would explain Health Hall's stupidity. If you see him you might want to wear rubber gloves.
When people treat game animals like domestic stock they can expect them to contact diseases like domestic stock.
The telling part of this is that it is widely known CWD is fairly common with wildlife enclosures, "High Fence" operations is the common term. What is very suspect is the State has been trying to purchase a lot of land around the area where the CWD deer was found from Anderson Tulley Timber Co but they couldn't agree to a price. They want to expand the public hunting around Mahanna WMA and other south delta WMA's. Also the recent tagging bill didn't pass like they thought it would to help keep tabs on the number of deer killed in the state. Black helicopter here, but it seems mighty suspect to find the first CWD infected deer right down the road from some land the state was attempting to buy.
When the state introduced allowing supplemental feeding, "baiting" of white tailed deer, a lot of MDWFP deer biologist left the department. Rumor(common sense) tells us they were scared of this very thing. Baiting allows higher congregation of deer numbers around a feeding station and therefore increases the chance of spreading disease.
Also, esteemed commissioner Billy DeViney has been a big proponent of allowing high fence deer operations, deer farms, and supplemental feeding/baiting. Mr. DeViney also has a high fence of his own. No one is really talking about this fact.
Regardless of the theories on how it's spread, how it came to happen in one of our counties, the likelihood of it spreading, etc....the point is, we NOW HAVE IT IN OUR STATE. Bitch and moan all you guys like about biologists, DeViney, high fences, corn and WMAs. And dismiss it at your own peril.
We've had chronic wasting in the legislature for years and years (both parties).
@12:31 What you're saying about the state and ATCO makes sense. I belone to a club that leases from ATCO just across Steele Bayou from where the infected deer what found.
Better throw out that freezer meat. Unless you processed it in your own garage, you likely got it processed in the same facility where deer from half the counties in this state were processed. Same saws, same knives, same tenderizers, same racks and very likely you never got your own meat back anyway. You never do.
A very wealthy construction company has had several CWD animals in their pens from bringing in deer from other states attempting to modify the herd...they work the herd just like cattle several times a year
CWD lives for years in the soil from decomposition of dead cervids. Infected cervids urinate and defecate and that also contains CWD prions. These prions have been found, in their infective state, in water runoff from land known to contain numbers of infected cervids.
Recent studies indicate that it probably does infect higher order primates, not just cervids.
It is also brought up from infected soil into plants. Particularly grasses like wheat.
So, to wrap up. Even though you don't eat deer meat, you may not be safe.
I'm thinking it may have come down the river (Arkansas and Mississippi) from the infected hotspots upriver. The implications of farmland destruction potential can't really be overstated. It would be a shame if some 'rich dudes' had deliberately imported iffy deer and allowed this disease to get a hold in MS, particularly in some of the richest farmland in the world.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802782/ "Detection of protease-resistant cervid prion protein in water from a CWD-endemic area"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4449294/ "Grass plants bind, retain, uptake and transport infectious prions"
https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/transmission.html
"On July 10, 2017, the scientists presented a summary of the study’s progress (access the recorded presentation and slides[PDF 3.88MB]), in which they showed that CWD was transmitted to monkeys that were fed infected meat (muscle tissue) or brain tissue from CWD-infected deer and elk. Some of the meat came from asymptomatic deer that had CWD (i.e. deer that appeared healthy and had not begun to show signs of the illness yet). Meat from these asymptomatic deer was also able to infect the monkeys with CWD."
Ah, wealthy or not, it's actually illegal to 'bring in deer from other states attempting to modify a herd' or for any other reason. But thanks for the rumor.
This isnt the first instance of CWD in Mississippi or the area where this infected deer was found. Five years ago deer were found in the same area this most recent deer was found with CDW symptoms. The state was notified at that time but it didnt go public as it has now.
@512am. Possessing and selling drugs (cocaine, cracks heroin) is illegal. Still happens. So, doesn't mean the other doesn't happen.
7:57 - Where's your evidence? You have none. Shit or get off the pot. Herd enhancement and population modification is very easy to report and investigate and punish and impossible to fly under the radar. Nobody is doing this successfully in this state. And there's no parallel between that and cocaine or 'cracks'(sic).
Next you'll tell us your cousin said some of the restaurants are passing off deer meat as sirloin tips and gravy on Sunday after church.
9:54. Other than potential tort issues it doesn't really matter HOW the CWD got here. It's here.
I'm more curious about the post that wildlife had a positive test 5 years ago and didn't tell anyone.
THAT would be disturbing.
No way wildlife needs to be running this operation. Should be health department and ag department all the way.
Question for the masses. Should the MSDWFP commission be ran with Governor appointed people, or should they be appointed to people who are biologists, or have some working knowledge of wildlife? As it sits we have Mr. DeViney who is construction man, owns some tractor dealerships, Scott Coopwood, who isn't really any kind of hunter, but owns Delta Magazine, Clay Wagner who is SVP of Hancock Bank, Billy Cossar who is a retired entergy employee and a cattle farmer who has also served on the Board of Economic Development and as chairman and vice-chairman of the Mississippi State Personnel Board, Robert Taylor who's family owns Taylor Machine works in Louisville, and Billy Mounger who is the CEO of Trinstar Technologies, LLC and previously served on the boards of Delta Waterfowl Foundation and The Nature Conservancy, Mississippi chapter.
Do you not think these people can be swayed? Also, do you think these are the people who know the best for our dept of wildlife? Do you think these guys can tell you what needs to be done with our public lands or do you think they have even stepped foot on a piece of public hunting land?
Speaking of Robert Taylor of Taylor Machine Works...Who among you saw the photo of the governor quail hunting in Louisville a few days ago? Who among you knows that the folks who arrange these quail hunts just happens to be Taylor Machine Works. Who among you knows the man who raises and pens the birds and allows them to be shot exclusively by clients and friends of Taylor Machine Works? And who among you wants to estimate the speed of the MHP troopers who escorted the Guv up to Louisville for his hunt?
Sure, all the guys mentioned in the post above have 'set foot on public AND PRIVATE hunting land'. That's why they get appointed to these positions. They're part of the GOV-CLUB. They're the influential in-crowd. They're part of private shoots on public land and exclusive shoots on private land. And they kneel at the sight of the governer's toga.
How many government workers are actually competent enough for their job? Why would you expect the wildlife commission to be any different?
Speaking of DWFP, why does the Corps of Engineers state that Grenada, Sardis and Enid lakes are flood control lakes and then the DWFP determines the amount and length of fish that can be caught?
DWFP also regulates fishing below the dams after the fish have left the lake! What DWFP does not regulate are the fishermen from other states that come to MS to rape and pillage crappie that they take back to their state and sell for $8.00 per pound! When you see a freezer at camping sites, you might want to take a look. What say you, MS DWFP committee members?
@542, come on now. You know when it comes to that, of which they’ve been told numerous times is happening, they then move from an enforcement role to the ms dept of wildlife tourism and license sales and how dare we question their ability to care about resources.
5:42 is correct. Ride around the campsites and cabins at Lake Washington during any annual crappie season or any time between March 1 and the end of June. Notice how many truck tags you see from Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana.
Then count the freezers you see plugged up in the backs of these trucks or on the ground beside camper trailers and under the front of goosenecks. Each one will soon be slap full of fileted crappie and some of these guys have two freezers. One had three on a tandem axle trailer. And they head back home and in some cases, sell the crappie they've harvested from our lakes.
But, of course the MDWFP is anxious to see them buy that annual license.
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