‘Zombie deer disease’ epidemic spreads in Yellowstone as scientists raise fears it may jump to humans
‘Zombie deer disease’ epidemic spreads in Yellowstone as scientists raise fears it may jump to humans
If a mad-cow-like disease jumped the barrier to humans and began spreading through Americans, the main problem in eradicating it would be that basically no one would be able to tell the difference from the average 'Enthusiastic' Republican Voter and someone whose brain is melting due to an actual pathogen.
Lucky for us prions do not spread except via ingestion...
Realises that we wanted to eat the rich
We’re actually not sure about that. Some prions do spread by eating the meat of infected animals, but I think we can be pretty sure that’s not what’s happening in a wild deer population. Prions can also be found in the environment, including deposited on grasses and plants, where that can last a very long time.
We do not know if this disease is or will become communicable to predator animals or what the potential is for environmental spread to livestock. We do know a bit more about the BSE than some others, but there’s a bunch we know exist that we know little to nothing about, and it’s guaranteed there’s more out there that we haven’t encountered yet.
Just eat the meaty parts, avoid the brain and spinal cord and you're all good.
What a fuckin left turn from science to comedic genius Bravo!
I don't think enough people are eating venison regularly for a this prion to be a serious threat even if it manages to transmit to humans
Have you seen zombie movies? It only takes ONE unassuming hunter... and then it immediately mutates into blah blah magic nonsense ensues...
and then it is airborne, and bloodborne
...
You are correct of course. =P
Shoot an infected deer in the head or have it otherwise die violently on the ground. Prions can last in the soil for years and years. Misfolded proteins are basically invulnerable, even in shit like autoclaves. If cows eat grass that has prions on them, that shit could potentially jump. And a lot of people ranch their cattle on public lands where infected deer are, and where wolves are unavailable due to politicians, who would otherwise prevent infected deer from spreading.
The best thing that we can do is have wolves clamp down on the few infected deer immediately rather than generate large pools of infection that then start cross-contaminating domestic livestock. Prions and ebola are the two things that really keep me up at night.
Deer arent eating venison regularly enough to explain the rate of its spread among deer.
Its moving through them someplace else. Which means if it jumps to us, its moving through us someplace else too. And we dont actually know for sure how its moving through them.
It probably depends on where you are, different parts of the country and different social circles have more or less hunters and different hunting cultures.
I know that around me in the circles I run in I pretty much everyone I know either hunts or has a friend (or multiple friends) who does and can/will hook them up with venison now and then.
If you have a couple hunters in a family, they fill all of their tags, are generous about sharing their venison with family and friends, if they're unlucky enough that those deer have CWD, then that could potentially be dozens of people exposed.
fookin' prions
Proteins are quirky... In a bad way
Poor Christopher Johnson & co. 🥹
From the little I’ve read on this it appears that the infectious cells favor a functional brain so that means all maga evangelical republicans are safe.
That's not really a good news though. ;(
Without reading, is it Chronic wasting? I just checked in on that the other day and the CDC didn't seem to think it was a big deal unless you are in a hotzone.
Yeah. CWD a big problem but it isn't going to cause a zombie apocalypse like the headline implies.
Prion diseases can take decades to show symptoms, like with CJD, and are very hard to test for in humans.
It might not be a question of whether it can jump species barriers, but when we will know it did, which is why the CDC can't and won't ring any alarm bells, just advise caution, until it's either too late for individuals or a confirmed non-issue.
There was a study that claimed it had jumped to chimps/monkeys in a testing environment but last I heard it was disputed, but that still leaves the average citizen with plenty of reason to not
Checks notes
Eat a diseased animal.
Source your venison, it should be tested if it's from an affected area but you never can trust suppliers for wild game.
Consider just eating, you know, cow, or only venison from a trusted source.
Preferably the person that shot and had it butchered.
That's disappointing
who had zombie invasion on their 2024 bingo card?
Honestly, natural disaster/Apocalypse has been on mine since 2021
it's always on my bingo card. i am a very hopeful person.
It's nice to finally see some optimism.
Oh its totally fine it's not like we've made the planet warmer allowing viruses to mutilate easier and for longer or like how we haven't been taking part in a centuries long destruction of the deers native habitat forcing them into populated areas right?... Right?
Add it to “What else can fuck millennials?” pile.
A particularly concerning illness for me.
Just stop facing the deer and you'll be okay.
Let's face it dear : name checks up !
I believe it's made the jump into a certain species of monkey in a lab environment last I knew, but the jump to humans hasn't been seen and isn't a given. This is a clickbait title. If you're hunting game, make sure to get it tested with samples taken at a wildlife check station before consuming and you're likely safe here.
scientists raise fears it may jump to humans
Who says it hasn't? I mean, have you looked at our politics lately?
POLITICS! Amiright folks?!
I see we are lining up for a great 2024
Yeah here we go! We all wanted a zombie outbreak and all we got was corona lockdowns. This is more like it! Bring it on!
/s
Oh deer
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
┬──┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ)
Prions are freaky.
Agreed. Kinda wonder if this is going to be what takes us out as a species one day.
A truck with all the proper paperwork arrives at the border and drops a trailer in the middle of a lot. The doors open and an automated lab just continues to selectively breed up prions in its thousands of samples of human brain cells. Eventually something wanders in, maybe a hungry animal, maybe a curious person. The prion soup enters into the ecosystem.
Can't say this is entirely what I expected from 2024, but I will say it is completely on-brand.
It'd be an improvement for some people.
One estimate in 2017 suggested humans could be eating up to 15,000 CWD-infected animals a year in the
Yeah, no, eating animals is surely never a bad idea. They compare it to the BSE cases that caused years and years of consequences.
The biggest problem with BSE was the idjit who decided that grinding up the offal from butchered cattle (even the sick and dead ones) should then be mixed into cattle feed.
It was a self-propagating hot mess that affected multiple nations, including Canada.
I know this has been going on for years. Still needs more research
Once an environment is infected, the pathogen is extremely hard to eradicate. It can persist for years in dirt or on surfaces, and scientists report it is resistant to disinfectants, formaldehyde, radiation and incineration at 600C (1,100F).
right, prions officially suck.. also no known cure or vaccine..
It's incredibly unlikely that there will ever be a vaccine or cure. Prions aren't a disease like others, put in layman terms they are anti-life.
It's like all the healthy proteins in your body are balancing on a tight rope 10 stories into the air. Prions are what happens when the proteins fall off: the proteins fall to a ground state where they are incredibly stable. Moving them back up would be as difficult as sending lightning back up to the sky, or unbaking a cake. That's why you need to burn them at 600C, they are so stable that they don't even want to react with oxygen. They are like nature's own forever-chemical.
Trying to use analogies to describe prions is hard. What it actually is is a certain type of misfolded protein. That happens all the time–that would be like the humans falling off the tightrope. It doesn't usually affect other proteins, and it usually just makes that individual protein nonfunctional. But prion diseases are proteins that are misfolded in exactly the right way that they cause other proteins to misfold in exactly the same way, which causes other proteins to misfold the same way... It's like kids playing zombie tag, except the kids are supposed to be doing taxes or something so they aren't running away from the chasers, and for some reason as soon as they get tagged they play along and now your taxes never get done and also you die
clearly the answer is friendly prions engineered by AI to defend us
It's just a matter of time before it does jump the species barrier to humans. We know from other such cases how disease spreads from butchered animals to human beings, from bats or infected cattle. Many pathogens can exist for years outside the contaminated source, and even exist in our bodies for years before deciding to become active. Many of us carry viruses than will trigger years down the road, and we don't know it yet.
So it's just really a matter of time before this happens. One thing we're good at as a species is, finding ways to make ourselves sick.
No, it's not just "a matter of time". While there are loads of pathogens that jumped to humans they were originally incompatible with, there are.myriads more that didn't and likely never will. The jump to humans is not a given.
Moreover, there's no expectation that a prion disease like CWD can ever spread from person to (non-cannibal) person
Prions are not a disease like bacteria or viruses. They’re abnormal protein chains that slowly cause a cascade of breakdowns in your brain. This had happened before. It’s not really something you have a defense against, but it easily jumps the typical species barrier. Our best defense is containment.
Given infinite time, infinite possibilities present.
Quite literally, it IS only a matter of time, unless you are really good at standing in the corner with a bag over your head saying "nuh uh. Things that I dont like and that I am afraid of will never happen," in which case it still is only a matter of time, you are just ignorant and argumentative.
Prions are not a disease like COVID or Staph. You don’t fight Prions. You contract prions and then you slowly and inevitably die from your brain being swiss cheesed because they’re abnormal protein chains that trigger breakdowns of other proteins. We dealt with this being directly in the food chain from the Mad Cow issue of the 90’s and as a species we made it through so readily that people are talking about this like it’s never happened before. We’re going to be okay.
Issue is we now have a decent population of people who will eat the tainted meat because "The government is lying" and trick others into eating it, saying, "See? You're fine, that was 'tainted', the government is lying to you"
This could legitimately cause damage because the fringe crazy is now much more populous
The only good thing about prions is that they don't mutate. CWD may extinctify deer, but it can't just jump to humans like bat-borne coronaviruses can
I hope not. You'd think humans would never want to eat a bat anyway - but apparently some have.
Since its a prion in a species that we don't farm, we just need to not eat venison.
Edit: Not that that helps the deer, of course.
This is literally why we have apex predators such as wolves. They help clamp down on the old and the sick so that prions (mad cow disease) does not spread to other species or humans. It cannot infect wolves.
When you kill off all the apex predators, like when Montana governor Greg Gianforte authorized the massacre of 100 wolves, you see explosions of extremely dangerous diseases and land degradation as deer damage tree roots, gardens, meadows, streams, and farms.
Not only that, but killing members of wolf packs causes their families to fall apart and everyone to scatter. That means wolves alone. Which cannot hunt pack animals which require coordination. So then they go after the easiest meal: dumbass farm animals who have zero survival instincts and whose ranchers no longer employ people to look after the herds in great enough numbers like the olden days. The cycle then perpetuates, as mad-cow contaminated soils spread and spread....
Damn.... It's almost like we should leave mother nature the fuck alone
The more we learn, the better it will be for all species. We'll figure it out eventually... or die out
Eh, beg to differ. It's our industrialist society imo.
Native Americans were shown to actually improve the ecosystems they inhabited through permaculture. We're not doing the same practices like we should nowadays.
Can't infect wolves? I'm no expert here but I don't feel like a vertebrate mammal with a brain could be completely immune to prions. Do you have any more information on that claim?
It's in the OP article. They haven't found any infections yet, and it doesn't appear to affect them. Apex predators have, prior to human intervention, always hunted the old, the young, and the sick. Mother nature appears to have found a way around apex predators all dying from disease to balance the environment.
Can't.... Infect.... Wolves?
You do know that prions aren't living things right? They don't "infect", they are a physical change to a compound (protein) that spreads to other similar compounds it touches. It's not a virus, or a bacteria.
Unless wolves lack the same proteins that deer also have? Usually this is a mammal thing, not a species thing.
I think the meaning of the word in context was clear enough.
Yeah! Fuck deer!