Deer across North America are dying from a mysterious disease that gradually destroys the animals’ nervous systems.
And scientists are concerned that the infection could make its way to humans.
Chronic wasting disease — or “zombie deer disease” — was first observed in 1967 in Fort Collins, Colorado, and has since infected wild herds in 24 states and Canada, as well as in South Korea and Norway, NPR reported.
“CWD passes from animal to animal through prions, misfolded proteins that cause other proteins to misfold around them,” NPR reported. “Different prion diseases tend to only harm certain species, but can evolve to overcome those limitations.”
In some herds, as many as half of the animals carry prions.
But direct contact isn’t the only way prions are transmitted. According to The New York Times, sick animals and cadavers can spread prions through plants and soil, which could be coated with deformed proteins for years, perhaps even decades.
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7 comments:
If people continue to eat raw meat or meat barley cooked it will survive and grow in them. Just watch "Monster's inside me" show, it happens all the time.
You mean like the corn, soybeans and other crops that end up as food?
This gets spread by hunters putting out bait piles where deer congregate to feed. Their saliva gets on the food source and is spread to other deer. Wild feeding deer are less likely to consume the same feed sources.
The way some people function, I think CWD has already spread to humans
Or, by infected deer who eat the crops straight out of the field. Idiot.
The idiot is the one that couldn't figure out that crops come from fields.
You guys are the idiots, food comes from the store.
"Zombie disease" That must be what Nancy Polosi has.
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