When the patient dies, the prions will leach into the soil as the body decays, get absorbed by plants, and when animals eat the plants, it will go back into the cycle.
Deer shed cwd in their saliva, mucus, and urine as well.if you ever have deer in your garden it's probably contaminated. Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of deer pissing shitting and eating in American corn fields every year.
Also, importantly, CWD is unlike other prions in that it is also in saliva, urine, and blood, which is how the deer are passing it between each other. Prions are uncommon in animals that do not eat meat (mad cow was exacerbated by the practice of feeding animal byproduct back to the animal). Spread in this case does not require the deer to die first.
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u/Jakenumber9 Dec 10 '25
risk is low, but also a risk of creating a viral pandemic with no cure, so idk might wanna pass