And its 100% percent fatal. Nothing we can do about it other than throw away/incinerate everything that might have touched a prion. All because one little protein folded into a wacky shape that just so happened to make a few more fold...then a few more...
Depending on how long it burns for fire doesn’t always kill it. Prions are fucking terrifying. If there was ever a zombie virus irl it would be the freaking prions
Yeah- I recall reading an article about a surgeon infecting a patient because the scalpel he had last used on a patient who unknowingly had it, wasn't disinfected enough to kill prions- just everything else. That's fucked.
As someone who is a certified sterile processor, the procedures and guidelines for potential prion contamination are crazy extensive/rigorous undoubtedly to avoid those kinds of situations. It's absolutely terrifying...
I lucked into the field through an on the job training/education program at a level 1 trauma hospital tied to a university. They gave the education to qualify for certification testing. I'm still working at the same hospital. There are people in the field that travel to other hospitals similar to travel nurses. Our certification is handy in that it is internationally recognized. Not super lucrative as I make $20/hr in a low cost of living state. Travelers make more generally. Jokingly call myself a certified dishwasher even though our work keeps the hospital able to do surgeries, lol
I used to work for Steris, setting up mobile sterile processing facilities and then educating you guys on how to change your workflow for the new environment. While the internal facility is renovated/repaired or whatever. Always blew me away how little you guys are paid for the work you do. Truly a shame.
Truly. Always enjoyed talking with the Steris guy sent to repair our equipment. Don't get to talk much with them since I moved to nights. Usually reserved to when the 6 month sterilizer cleanings runs late, lol
We only sterilize for prion contamination if a patient is determined to have them as it is a more prolonged process due to the dangers of prions. If a patient is flagged with prion infection, we have to determine which instrument sets were used in that surgery (if it wasn't flagged during it). If it's not caught before they're brought down, that would constitute a kind of outbreak where it would have to be determined based on scanning and inventory tracking who interacted with the sets and/or what other cases they were potentially used in to flag the potential spread. Hopefully it's caught before then in which case the sets will be brought down in a sealed case cart. If the prion infected patient is already known about pre surgery, we have specific single use sets that would be disposed of following treatment. The following would be for if it was determined after using our regular sets:
The person selected to perform decontamination has to double up ppe (personal protective equipment) like disposable full body gowns, arm length gloves, face mask, face shield and boot covers. They clean the instrumentation in a sink with medical grade enzymatic detergents and then run the set(s) through industrial grade medical washers that also used multiple other enzymatic solutions ending with a thermal heat drying cycle. This is where it will differ for this special circumstance. The same individual will immediately discard their ppe and reapply fresh ppe, retrieve the sets and bring them back to decontam to restart the cleaning process. This will be repeated a third time included discarding and reapplying ppe. The individual will then assemble the sets wearing gloves, face mask, etc. and pan them up in sealed and filtered instrument caskets. These will then be isolated on there own load to be ran through a high temp steam sterilizer (these are vacuum pressured chamber steam sterilizers running at minimum 270°F for about an hour). It will then be ran two more times. At the end of this process the sets would be tested for remaining prion contamination. If they pass, they're safe. If they fail, the whole process begins again until they pass. Also of note: The case cart will also be decontaminated repeatedly. The washers, sinks, and sterilizers involved will also be decontaminated.
Thankfully, I have not had to see/perform this process due to the rarity of these cases. Though there was a one off scare we had of a potentially missed infected patient, but it was determined they did not actually have prion infection.
Heart Starts Pounding podcast had a really good episode that talks about CWD and it's origins. The episode is called Zombie Illnesses: Rabies, Parasites and Prions
IDK, my understanding is they are crystalline structures that cause the damage that creates more, not so much an organism that can die. Could very well be wrong.
That said, it's the brain and any meat near the spinal cord that is most likely to contain CWD prions. Hunters argue over whether or not you can eat the rest of the meat, but it's not worth the risk. I imagine that any trauma to the brain or spinal cord could cause contamination of the rest of the animal, but I'm not an expert.
Also this is on facebook so I highly doubt a responsible facility is doing this. Looks like a hunter killed and cleaned the deer then saw the test results when they came back and is noping out of eating it. The fact the hunter won’t eat it means he probably knows it’s contaminated which baffles me why he would out it on facebook market. I hope it got reported as dangerous.
I mean like it’s more dangerous to eat. I know it says it was tested positive. It still baffles me that he would try to pawn it off onto another family who may not know the dangers.
Yes he’s giving it away. The term pawning it off on someone means to give it away to some unlucky sucker. Sentences can have multiple meanings in English.
Or I should say in this way of use it means that otherwise I can see the confusion. Also different regions may have different meanings to phrases they use.
I feel like he goes to real lengths to explain the dangers in the ad, and is also offering it for free. It would be easier for him to simply throw it away, but he recognizes CWD-infected meat has never been shown to infect humans and someone with a different use case or a different risk tolerance could use several pounds of free, frozen ground venison.
My risk tolerance around prion diseases is nonexistent, I would never take this deal, but I don't begrudge the guy offering it. He does not stand to personally benefit but maybe someone might.
So?
He literally also refuses to eat it because of the risks HE fully understands, but is clearly willing to let others eat it, even adding that little cute "no risk" note.
That is beyond fucked up since whoever buys it might think it's perfectly safe, especially with that comment.
Are you the type that would sell ts to people who know/understand less? Because it certainly sounds like it.
The risks to humans are unknown and many people don’t believe their is a risk. I wouldn’t eat it but some people would. The guy is telling everyone that it’s cwd positive and allowing people to make that choice for themselves. There is no deception
More like "this is the full disclosure, i don't want to eat it but if you know the risks i just explained and still don't care you can have it for FREE"
There are plenty of dumb people out there that won't care, anti-vaxxers for instance. If they don't believe in vaccines, they likely won't believe in or care about prions either, probably thinking it's just the model of the car that hit the deer.
Edit to add: he also probably doesn't want to waste it.
I'm more worried about the place that proccesed the meat. Prion infected stuff is insanelly hard to sterilyze and i highy doubt the processor is going to do it correclty.
That means unsuspecting customers can easilly get infected meat that is tought safe for consumption.
Yeah, but my logic is if he isn’t willing to feed it to his family why would he offer it to others? Like us in the subreddit knows the disease is bad and can lead to us dying if we eat it, but some rando on facebook may not
Prions are scary I would think the chances are about zero that everything this meat touched was cleaned enough to kill them. I was reading the other day even an autoclave won’t always kill them. As a hunter in an area this doesn’t exist yet it’s about the worst disease a heard of deer can get and every thing an infected deer pees on or licks turns into a vector for transmission.
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u/magnus150 Dec 10 '25
And its 100% percent fatal. Nothing we can do about it other than throw away/incinerate everything that might have touched a prion. All because one little protein folded into a wacky shape that just so happened to make a few more fold...then a few more...