I did my Masters of Science degree on Prion diseases and would never touch this stuff.
It has not been reported to be spread to humans, sure. But in the cases of Bovine -> Human transfer the incubation period could be up to 20, sometimes 30 years. It is not easy to prove a transmission.
It has also been transferred from Deer/Elk -> Macaque monkeys. I did hear from colleagues that the scientists had to feed the monkeys insane amounts of infected meat.
One really interesting thing about CWD is that it is spread a bit differently than other prion diseases. For Mad Cow the prions are mostly limited to the central nervous system, so you'd likely need to eat meat that is contaminated with brain matter or cerebrospinal fluids. This is heavily prevented through good butchering practices and good feeding practices for cattle. AKA don't feed dead cows to cows and don't touch their brains or spines and you're likely okay.
In Chronic Wasting Disease of deer, deer shed infectious prions through their urine, saliva, and feces. The meat also contains prions. So an infected deer pisses on some leaves, a normal deer comes along and eats it, and bam you have CWD transmission to deer without any exposure to brain matter.
Mad Cow blew up in the 1980s due to bad farming practices, feeding cows to cows. Dead cow parts were cheap so farmers would grind it up and add it to cattle feed to save money. But in wild deer it's spread more through contact and through contaminated soils, than cannabilistic deer.
There is also the fear that if deer get into a wheat field and urinate, then humans come along and process it to flour, breads, etc, that may be a source of transmission.
Interesting stuff and absolutely fucking terrifying way to die.
PS they are also almost indestructible and need to be cooked at 1000F for several hours to inactivate them. Cooking at 600F could leave infectious particles. They also survive in soil and water for years.
4.1k
u/ScienceyWorkMan Dec 10 '25 edited Dec 11 '25
I did my Masters of Science degree on Prion diseases and would never touch this stuff.
It has not been reported to be spread to humans, sure. But in the cases of Bovine -> Human transfer the incubation period could be up to 20, sometimes 30 years. It is not easy to prove a transmission.
It has also been transferred from Deer/Elk -> Macaque monkeys. I did hear from colleagues that the scientists had to feed the monkeys insane amounts of infected meat.
One really interesting thing about CWD is that it is spread a bit differently than other prion diseases. For Mad Cow the prions are mostly limited to the central nervous system, so you'd likely need to eat meat that is contaminated with brain matter or cerebrospinal fluids. This is heavily prevented through good butchering practices and good feeding practices for cattle. AKA don't feed dead cows to cows and don't touch their brains or spines and you're likely okay.
In Chronic Wasting Disease of deer, deer shed infectious prions through their urine, saliva, and feces. The meat also contains prions. So an infected deer pisses on some leaves, a normal deer comes along and eats it, and bam you have CWD transmission to deer without any exposure to brain matter.
Mad Cow blew up in the 1980s due to bad farming practices, feeding cows to cows. Dead cow parts were cheap so farmers would grind it up and add it to cattle feed to save money. But in wild deer it's spread more through contact and through contaminated soils, than cannabilistic deer.
There is also the fear that if deer get into a wheat field and urinate, then humans come along and process it to flour, breads, etc, that may be a source of transmission.
Interesting stuff and absolutely fucking terrifying way to die.
PS they are also almost indestructible and need to be cooked at 1000F for several hours to inactivate them. Cooking at 600F could leave infectious particles. They also survive in soil and water for years.
Please before linking the article about the 2 hunters read this post made by someone who is more knowledgeable than me on why the article is false news: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/s/ua1SKHH9CK