CWD safe to eat or not?

Rifleman97 said:

You can NOT cook chronic wasting disease out of an animal. You can’t even sterilize medical equipment that has touched it. Once prions have touched it, it’s no longer medically safe to use. Sterilization typically uses heat and chemicals in an autoclave. If an autoclave can’t kill it, there’s no way cooking it will.

While the prions in CWD have not been found to transfer to humans in the same way, there have been numerous cases of people dying of various other diseases not long after, that research is now starting to believe was caused by exposure to CWD.

Not worth the risk.

For my credentials, I worked at the USDA as a (disease) sample receiver who worked with some of the literal world experts in this matter. And as a curious hunter I asked the experts many, many questions regarding CWD and it’s effects on humans and such. I am not a world expert, but I still have a couple of their phone numbers if anyone wants me to ask them more specific questions. But ALL of them unanimously said they would never eat CWD meat. I trust them more than I trust people who don’t understand that you can’t cook out prions from meat. And about half of them are also hunters, so they understood the shame it is to put that much meat to waste.

Click to expand...

Jeff505 said:

Worms in bears can be killed with either freezing or cooking to the proper specifications. Prions are for the most part impervious to these methods. Oxidation does halt this process. Most notably vaporized hydrogen peroxide is effective in assuring sterility. This is often referred to as plasma sterilization. In a plasma sterilizer the process consists of evacuating a chamber and injecting heated hydrogen peroxide as a gas under vacuum conditions to oxidize microbic life.
This method does halt the replication of the rouge protein molecule know as a prion. The plasma portion of the cycle consists of high voltage introduction after the sterilization time is complete. The plasma portion of the cycle cause H3O to become H2O and oxygen and consequently a non toxic discharge, the plasma portion of the cycle contributes very little towards sterilization.

Click to expand...

steve white said:

Well, anything would be better than the first pie I ever made. Overheard some old ladies talking about lard crusts, so I picked up a bucket of the runny stuff, measured it out, made the prettiest pie you ever saw. Everyone took one bite and was "too full." They were nicer than I would have been! One bite was enough to coat the entire inside of your mouth, including under tongue, with a dry feeling grease. Tongue felt like a bell clapper. Not even the dog would finish it.

Click to expand...

5shot said:

So what precautions do hospitals use for this type of thing? One would have to assume that whoever touched those instruments has then cross contaminated an entire floor before the prion is discovered. The autoclave would be permanently contaminated itself. Scary to think about.

Click to expand...

Rifleman97 said:

The autoclaves can be cleaned using specific chemicals I can’t remember the name of right now that break down organic proteins in combination with high heat for long periods of time. All medical equipment that came into contact with prions have to go through the incinerator. The tools (like scalpels and forceps and such) usually survive that but are corroded to all hell, and then can be safely disposed of as normal trash or scrap.

Prions aren’t something that are capable of contaminating a whole floor as they’re in their body for the most part, so it’s just the room they’re in. The bed sheets get incinerated, all tools that touched the patient must be disposed of, the autoclave must be cleaned if the prion disease was discovered after tools had been used on the patient, etc. Nothing scares a medical ward more than discovering they have a patient with prions in their care.

At the USDA, the CWD testing is its own room with disposable tools and hoods and 3 layers of security, shower in and shower out every time you enter or leave that room. The samples are stored in formaldehyde and there’s security cameras in and around, and officers at the entrance to that room, to ensure that no one enters or leaves without the proper safety protocol.

The live animals the USDA has with CWD for research purposes are kept in hospital like rooms with double hepa filters pulling a constant slight vacuum in the room so when doors open there’s no air that pushes airborn prions out to contaminate other areas, and when the animals are killed they are vacuum sealed before leaving their room to the CWD room, and then all samples and the carcass are vacuum sealed again before bringing to the incinerator (which is capable of incinerating 4 whole Buffalo at once, really impressive)

Click to expand...

Rifleman97 said:

The autoclaves can be cleaned using specific chemicals I can’t remember the name of right now that break down organic proteins in combination with high heat for long periods of time. All medical equipment that came into contact with prions have to go through the incinerator. The tools (like scalpels and forceps and such) usually survive that but are corroded to all hell, and then can be safely disposed of as normal trash or scrap.

Prions aren’t something that are capable of contaminating a whole floor as they’re in their body for the most part, so it’s just the room they’re in. The bed sheets get incinerated, all tools that touched the patient must be disposed of, the autoclave must be cleaned if the prion disease was discovered after tools had been used on the patient, etc. Nothing scares a medical ward more than discovering they have a patient with prions in their care.

At the USDA, the CWD testing is its own room with disposable tools and hoods and 3 layers of security, shower in and shower out every time you enter or leave that room. The samples are stored in formaldehyde and there’s security cameras in and around, and officers at the entrance to that room, to ensure that no one enters or leaves without the proper safety protocol.

Click to expand...

5shot said:

What about gowns, gloves, hair, etc in a hospital? Seems like the prions would piggyback all over the hospital.

Click to expand...