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It's now in Georgia: Chronic Wasting Disease

Christine Daecher, DO

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is a transmissible prion disease that is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder affecting deer, elk, and moose. The question remains if this disease is transmissible to humans. Read more to learn about CWD.


“Zombie deer disease" When I moved to Georgia full-time a little under four years ago, I was shocked that Savannah locals had not heard of CWD. Coming from Pennsylvania, this awful infection was well known to everyone, and especially to hunters. While in Pennsylvania, I had a private internal medicine practice. In the early years, many of my patients would bring me deer meat and deer jerky. I always look forward to these treats. Around 2017 or so, my patients, who were avid hunters, stopped bagging deer and said the only thing you could shoot them with was a camera. They also stopped providing deer meat, and they wouldn't eat it themselves. They would tell me stories about having a small herd that would visit their backyard. One deer would start to act funny, and within a few weeks, the entire herd would be acting off. Videos were produced of deer stumbling, falling, and struggling to get back up.



USGS CWD map as of January 2025
CWD map as of January 2025. Note the grey spot in southern GA at Lanier County.

In January 2025, Georgia DNR confirmed that a white-tailed deer in the state had tested positive for CWD. It is more likely that CWD has been here in GA and other southern states for a while, but due to only very few hunters testing their meat, it has not presented itself.



What is a Prion?


First, let's start by defining viruses; viruses are infectious molecular structures that contain a viral capsid and genetic material, such as DNA or RNA. Think of the capsid as a shell that continues to contain genetic material. Viruses have a molecular weight range of approximately 10,000,000 daltons.


A prion is an infectious protein that does not have a capsid or any DNA or RNA. Prions are often misfolded proteins that can induce the misfolding of proteins in the central nervous system (CNS), resulting in unchecked replication of the prion, leading to cell death. Prions are very small. The CWD prion is 12,000-35,000 daltons in size, which is much smaller than that of a virus. Unlike a virus, a prion is not damaged by heat or cold. There is actually no 100% effective method to sterilize any material of a prion.




Symptoms of CWD?


To know the symptoms, know that this disease produces a spongiform encephalopathy (basically, sh*t for brains). Affected animals will have:


-disorientation and confusion

-lack of coordination

-lack of fear of humans or allowing a person to get near

-weight loss

-drooling


Infected deer may also appear healthy as the incubation period until symptoms occur is 5 months to 5 years in whitetail deer.




How Does CWD Spread in Deer?


In deer, it appears feeding sites lead to transmission of CWD due to high concentrations of deer being in a small area. Saliva, urine, feces, contaminated soil, and contaminated water are all sources of CWD spread. Soil contamination may last for many years1. Remember from above there is no 100% effective way to sterilize a prion away.




What about Hogs?


The bad news is that wild hogs, despite not being cervid animals, are testing positive for CWD in areas where the deer population has CWD.5 Due to being scavengers, wild pigs may contribute to spreading CWD.



Can Humans Get CWD?


In my opinion, the jury is still out. At this time, every state natural resource department and the CDC state there are no confirmed human cases of CWD. With that being said, scientists and public health officials remain cautious.


CWD appears to have a very long incubation period in primates. In humans specifically, this may be years or decades.1  Other prion diseases such as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE or "Mad Cow Disease") jumped to humans after consuming infected meat and especially if consuming infected brain or spinal cord tissue. Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), another prion disease, proves that prions can cross species barriers under the right conditions.2


Two separate independent experimental infection studies on macaques produced opposite results. A 2017 study out of Canada inoculated squirrel monkeys and macaque monkeys with infected deer/elk meat either by feeding or by directly inoculating the brain. Squirrel monkeys had a very high rate of infection susceptibility, as proven by brain pathology and prion staining. Early results stated that macaques did not develop CWD after 11-13 years.3 A second unpublished study also out of Canada showed some macaques had subclinical CWD. Because macaques are genetically closer to humans than squirrel monkeys, these results should give pause. Concerning BSE and vCJD, macaques are susceptible to both of these prion diseases.


Further studies on humanized mice and primate cell cultures showed susceptibility to CWD prions, though transmission remained inefficient. 4 This means transmission does occur but not 100% of the time.




Hunters and Meat Processors


Current recommendations are that hunters should consider having deer tested for CWD, and if present, the meat should be discarded. One of the problems with this, is it generally takes six weeks to get the results back. Further, as mentioned above, there is no way to sterilize anything from a prion.


"When I was in my medical residency, a major educational medical center in the area purchased a robot for neurosurgery. The first patient the robot was used on was for a brain biopsy. The biopsy result came back with the prion disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. The medical center had to incinerate the $4.5 million robot and purchase a new robot."


Knowing that it is impossible to sterilize equipment, knives, countertops, or anything else that a prion comes in contact with, it is very concerning when it comes to deer meat processing. Even if your deer does not test positive for the illness, there is no guarantee the meat may not have been contaminated by another animal processed in the same facility.


Further, it's concerning that Georgia does not have regulations about deer meat processing in facilities that also process commercially grown beef. This means that a butcher shop can process wild game as well as highly regulated farm animals. When purchasing meat from a butcher shop, I air on the side of caution, and I do not shop at facilities that also process deer.


If you consume harvested deer, never eat the brain, spinal cord, eyes, or lymphatic tissues. Always wear gloves when processing.



References

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2023). Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD). Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/index.html

2. World Health Organization (WHO). (2023). Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/variant-creutzfeldt-jakob-disease

3. After 13 years, no evidence for CWD transmission to macaques was detected clinically or by using highly sensitive prion disease-screening assays.

4. Elder, A. M., et al. (2022). Chronic Wasting Disease and Its Potential for Zoonotic Transmission. Scientific Reports. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-14858-6

5. Soto P, Bravo-Risi F, Benavente R, Stimming TH, Bodenchuk MJ, Whitley P, Turnage C, Spraker TR, Greenlee J, Telling G, Malmberg J, Gidlewski T, Nichols T, Brown VR, Morales R. Detection of Prions in Wild Pigs (Sus scrofa) from Areas with Reported Chronic Wasting Disease Cases, United States. Emerg Infect Dis. 2025 Jan;31(1):168-173. doi: 10.3201/eid3101.240401. PMID: 39714396; PMCID: PMC11682794.

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