Could CWD at landfill pose a future threat?
If you go
What: The Janesville Sustainability Committee will discuss the disposal of deer carcasses in the Janesville city landfill.
Where: Fourth floor of the Janesville Municipal Building, 18 N. Jackson St.
When: 6:30 tonight
Also on the agenda: Sustainability presentations by officials from the cities of Evansville and Beloit.
JANESVILLE — If we throw deer carcasses that carry chronic wasting disease into our landfills, will the disease be transmitted to animals—or humans—decades from now?
Science does not yet have the answer.
So what do we do in the meantime with the carcasses from deer in this part of the state, where chronic wasting disease, or CWD, is most prevalent?
The answer to that question could affect hunters and the businesses that butcher their deer carcasses.
One answer is to dump them in the landfill, with special disposal procedures. That's what the Janesville city landfill does, according to a city Department of Public Works memo.
Now, the state Department of Natural Resources is offering the city of Janesville a way to protect itself from lawsuits that might arise if someone is harmed by the disease from the landfill at some time in the future.
The indemnification agreement also would protect the city's wastewater treatment plant, which treats the liquid that collects at the bottom of the landfill.
Some members of the city's sustainability committee oppose the agreement, saying the city should err on the side of caution when it comes to the public's health and that safer disposal methods exist. The committee meets tonight to discuss its recommendation to the city council.
City staff and the city manager already have agreed that the agreement is a good idea, according to the Oct. 29 memo written by operations director John Whitcomb.
Without the agreement, "the landfill will be unable to continue to accept deer carcasses," the memo states.
Whitcomb was not immediately available for comment.
"Landfill disposal remains the recommended disposal option by WDNR based on various studies," the memo states.
The council is scheduled to take up the matter when it meets Monday, Dec. 14.
No case of CWD being transmitted to humans has been confirmed, but scientists have not ruled out the possibility. Two things are certain: CWD and related diseases always are fatal, and there is no cure.
Also known is that the malformed proteins called prions, which cause CWD, remain active in the soil.
The DNR's own draft management plan for CWD, published this year, states that CWD prions in the environment, "may serve as a source for transmission."
That's why Matt Mills of the sustainability committee is arguing strongly against carcasses in landfills.
Instead, the DNR should collect the carcasses and dispose of them through extremely high temperature incineration or through a chemical process called alkaline digestion, Mills said.
Burning the carcasses at normal temperatures will not destroy the prions.
Both those processes are much more expensive than landfilling, Mills said, but he argues that they are the safest methods.
Mills, a microbiologist, said he fears CWD from the landfill could get into the water supply or that rats in the landfill could eat the carcasses and transmit the disease to other animals. Whether that could happen has not been proved possible, at least not yet.
Dec 1, 2009 at 9:51 a.m.
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Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Susceptibilities of Nonhuman Primates to Chronic Wasting Disease
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From: TSS (216-119-163-189.ipset45.wt.net)
Subject: CWD aka MAD DEER/ELK TO HUMANS ???
Date: September 30, 2002 at 7:06 am PST
From: "Belay, Ermias"
To:
Cc: "Race, Richard (NIH)" ; ; "Belay,
Ermias"
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 9:22 AM
Subject: RE: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG HUNTERS
Dear Sir/Madam,
In the Archives of Neurology you quoted (the abstract of which was attached to your email), we did not say CWD in humans will present like variant CJD.
That assumption would be wrong. I encourage you to read the whole article and call me if you have questions or need more clarification (phone: 404-639-3091). Also, we do not claim that "no-one has ever been infected with prion disease from eating venison." Our conclusion stating that we found no strong evidence of CWD transmission to humans in the article you quoted or in any other forum is limited to the patients we investigated.
Ermias Belay, M.D.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
-----Original Message-----
From:
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 10:15 AM
To: rr26k@nih.gov; rrace@niaid.nih.gov; ebb8@CDC.GOV
Subject: TO CDC AND NIH - PUB MED- 3 MORE DEATHS - CWD - YOUNG
HUNTERS
Sunday, November 10, 2002 6:26 PM ......snip........end..............TSS
snip...
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot....
Chronic Wasting Disease
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot....
TSS
Dec 1, 2009 at 9:48 a.m.
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65
Detection of Protease-Resistant Prion Protein in Water from a CWD-Endemic Area
Tracy A. Nichols*1,2, Bruce Pulford1, Christy Wyckoff1,2, Crystal Meyerett1, Brady Michel1, Kevin Gertig3, Jean E. Jewell4, Glenn C. Telling5 and M.D. Zabel1 1Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA 2National Wildlife Research Center, Wildlife Services, United States Department of Agriculture, Fort Collins, Colorado, 80521, USA 3Fort Collins Water and Treatment Operations, Fort Collins, Colorado, 80521, USA 4 Department of Veterinary Sciences, Wyoming State Veterinary Laboratory, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, 82070, USA 5Department of Microbiology, Immunology, Molecular Genetics and Neurology, Sanders Brown Center on Aging, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 40536, USA * Corresponding author- tracy.a.nichols@aphis.usda.gov
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is the only known transmissible spongiform encephalopathy affecting free-ranging wildlife. Experimental and epidemiological data indicate that CWD can be transmitted horizontally and via blood and saliva, although the exact mode of natural transmission remains unknown. Substantial evidence suggests that prions can persist in the environment, implicating it as a potential prion reservoir and transmission vehicle. CWD- positive animals can contribute to environmental prion load via biological materials including saliva, blood, urine and feces, shedding several times their body weight in possibly infectious excreta in their lifetime, as well as through decomposing carcasses. Sensitivity limitations of conventional assays hamper evaluation of environmental prion loads in water. Here we show the ability of serial protein misfolding cyclic amplification (sPMCA) to amplify minute amounts of CWD prions in spiked water samples at a 1:1 x106 , and protease-resistant prions in environmental and municipal-processing water samples from a CWD endemic area. Detection of CWD prions correlated with increased total organic carbon in water runoff from melting winter snowpack. These data suggest prolonged persistence and accumulation of prions in the environment that may promote CWD transmission.
64
Prion Protein Adsorption to Soil in a Competitive Matrix
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ALSO, NOTE MINERAL LICKS A POSSIBLE SOURCE AND TRANSMISSION MODE FOR CWD ;
http://chronic-wasting-disease.blogspot....
http://www.cwd-info.org/pdf/3rd_CWD_Symp...
TSS
Nov 18, 2009 at 7:41 p.m.
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http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/b...
Nov 18, 2009 at 2:54 p.m.
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Look at the picture. Is that a boat in the foreground? An old fiberglass boat that someone could not sell? Did they just take it to the dump? To me that makes for a more interesting story. Is it now at the scale house with all of the other treasures? Someone takes a boat to the dump and who knows what else there is, and the story is about dead deer?
Nov 18, 2009 at 9:36 a.m.
Nov 18, 2009 at 8:35 a.m.
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"Mills, a microbiologist, said he fears CWD from the landfill could get into the water supply or that rats in the landfill could eat the carcasses and transmit the disease to other animals. Whether that could happen has not been proved possible, at least not yet."
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I have a theory that Mr. Mills, is not unlike the T.V. character, "Monk." Whether he is or isn't hasn't been proven, at least not yet.
Nov 18, 2009 at 8:07 a.m.
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First of all, this article makes it sound like every deer that would be thrown into the dump has CWD. Huh? Secondly, they aren't even testing the deer for CWD in most places anymore because it costs too much, therefore nobody really knows if their deer has it. Unless of course it's tested and that's not happening to every deer. So once again, we're beating a dead horse. Or I mean..dead deer.
Nov 18, 2009 at 8:04 a.m.
Nov 18, 2009 at 8:02 a.m.
Nov 17, 2009 at 11:36 p.m.
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Just wondering what the difference is between these deer carcasses being disposed of in the landfill and the same number of deer dying of the disease and the carcasses decomposing in the forest. The decomposed matter still ends up in the ground water whether the deer died of the disease in the wild or had the disease but died of a gunshot and the carcass was thrown in a landfill.
Nov 17, 2009 at 11:04 p.m.
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What's this, NANNYS ARE COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK!?!
Run Away, Run Away
Nov 17, 2009 at 9:55 p.m.
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Another fear mongering story, it was okay up until..."Whether that could happen has not been proved possible, at least not yet."
The odds of you being infected with CWD is atleast 1 MILLION times less than the odds of you getting killed on the interstate. Why do papers run these stories? All it does is get the worriers to come out of the woodwork, and push the Nanny state that is already driving taxes through the roof.
Nov 17, 2009 at 8:49 p.m.
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(This comment was removed by the site staff, thrown in the landfill, and was then eaten for breakfast by rats.)
Nov 17, 2009 at 8:35 p.m.
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....and they never will.
Maybe not in your lifetime....but...
Nov 17, 2009 at 7:22 p.m.
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my god lets just give it a rest!
they have never ever found a connection beteen beasets and people and they never will
Nov 17, 2009 at 7:21 p.m.
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Why does the best solution have to cost the most? How do they dispose of rabies-infected animals? I think this issue is important considering I live close to the landfill. In the summer I always see birds of prey circling the area and I know they are eating rodents living off our scraps. Now that there isn't any predators around to eat the birds, I wonder where and when those birds die what kind of damage they will do to the soil or to any other scavenger animals. If a raccoon has no problem eating rotten meat then crawling back into a gutter, whose to say that they wont somehow contaminate the water going back into the river-effecting fish and plantlife around our city.Then if some guy catches a fish and eats it,and he gets sick and dies, do we have to incinerate the body at a higher temperature? What if after fishing his pregnant wife eats some? Does it pass on to the baby and mutate into a whole new virus? Little guy never stands a chance just because city council wants to save a buck here (no pun intended) in order to spend more on an unnecessary ice rink?So many questions....
Nov 17, 2009 at 6:47 p.m.
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It's no worse than the chemicals that are dumped in the landfill.
Nov 17, 2009 at 6:28 p.m.
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I don't approve the idea of dumping deer carcasses that has CWD in the city dump. Burning the carcasse makes more sense if it cost more. At extreme temperature, we'll be assured that the prions would be killed off too.
I don't want my drink water containing CWD/prions. That would be a health hazard to all concern.
Nov 17, 2009 at 5:11 p.m.
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Hopefully, dub190, the answer is "enough".
Nov 17, 2009 at 4:05 p.m.
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Some investigative reporting would enable you to tell us how much money is being spent on finding this out.
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