I watched all 43 minutes of it. Some observations, they are deer breeders trying to save their industry. They talk about all the research they do yet they don't site any of their research. Maybe they did and I missed it. They cite states that don't have any deer farms so how did it get there? Good question, I'll speculate here but not every deer that was raised behind high fences is accounted for. I have wondered for years where the cull deer from hunting preserves go. They do talk about carcass removal from infected areas in Wisconsin and taken back to states that caused the disease to spread not the deer farms. Possibly true. They talk about the cases of CWD in Arkansas with no captive animals in the area. I believe the wild elk in Arkansas were transplanted from out west in CWD areas.
They say the obex (part of the brain) is still being tested. Iowa only tests the retropharyngeal lymph nodes.
They say no area that had CWD is now CWD free. Check out New York.
They talk about transmission through high fences from wild animals to captive, so wouldn't they want to build a second fence to keep the wild deer from giving their captive deer CWD?
They talk about live deer testing, I believe I outlined that in another post. That works well for captive animals but not wild animals. And I actually learned how live testing was done.
Something I agree with is nobody knows how many prions a deer needs to ingest to contract CWD. They site several studies where CWD was injected into brains of animals and they got CWD. I agree, that doesn't have much cross over into actual practice. There have been monkeys that have contracted CWD from eating CWD positive deer meat but I agree that there isn't a standard amount of prions to use to see if it is infectious. Reminds me of the old cyclamate cancer tests. They fed rats an amount of cyclamate, an artificial sweetener, that would take years and years for a human to consume.
Something I disagree with is their stance that baiting and feeding deer does not spread the disease. They site the nobody knows how many prions it takes to contract CWD but if the deer keep coming back to the exact same spot to eat food or lick mineral that is infected they for sure are eventually going to get a lethal dose. I believe there is a test than can detect prions in mineral sites and food piles I'd love to see a study of mineral licks positive or negative for CWD.
They talk about deer that die from getting hit by a car or shot by law enforcement testing positive for CWD and CWD gets blamed for the death. The deer has CWD, it was going to die but they die from some other complication than CWD. Two of the positives in Iowa had infections. One had an arrow wound and one had a brain abscess at the base of a pedicle. Both deer would have died from their infections before the CWD killed them. They tried to say deer don't necessarily die from CWD. No matter how you parse it CWD is a death sentence.
The panel spent a lot of time talking about the difference between CWD and EHD. Bottom line people see more deer die from EHD than CWD because they die in 1-2 days not 1-2 years and they die in one area. The deaths from CWD are more than likely spread out over time and distance not all on the same 80 acres plus those deer are infectious for that entire time. To the best of my knowledge EHD deer are not infectious to other deer.
Norway, they talk about how did the disease get to Norway in the reindeer. Good question. I heard rumors a year or two ago that it was deer urine for hunting. I dunno. I've wondered since it turned up over there how they got it. I doubt they will ever know, but it is a fact that Korea has CWD because of infected deer (elk?) that were shipped over there. They have been able to trace positive deer from deer farms in South Dakota to Canada.
Are there different strains of CWD? They think so and I do too. I wish they would have cited their research. I know a good microbiologist/pathologist/epidemiologist can look at a bacteria or virus and tell you exactly where it came from, I think there should be a way for them to identify different strains of CWD prions as well. Although the prion doesn't have any DNA I would think there would be some kind of marker that can be traced.
I can't remember if they talked about genetics and a resistance to CWD but they sure made it clear that deer farmers rely totally on genetics and nothing else to grow those racks. I'm a bit skeptical on that one but I can't say for certain.
They also went to great lengths to try and discredit a hunting family that did a facebook live thing about CWD and blamed it all on the deer farms. Please save the self righteous hyperbole for something else. They talk at length about the hidden agendas of state agencies who are trying to put them out of business and ruin their way of life. They say those hunters that say deer farms are ground zero are unwitting dupes of HSUS.
This wasn't in the video, it is my own musings, the deer farm in Cero Gordo County that was depopulated had a 79% prevalence. To my knowledge the area around the depopulated site has never had a deer test positive for CWD. So how did the deer in that enclosure get CWD from wild deer? Same goes for the enclosure down in Davis County.
All and all I do agree with a couple of things they said but over all they are trying to save an industry. I took lots of notes but my hand writing is so bad that I couldn't read some of my scribbling.
Here is a link to that video.
I challenge everyone to watch the first video with Mr. Richards then this one and draw your own conclusions.
