More mad deer.Wildlife officials are becoming increasingly worried about chronic wasting disease Noun 1. chronic wasting disease - a wildlife disease (akin to bovine spongiform encephalitis) that affects deer and elk animal disease - a disease that typically does not affect human beings (CWD CWD chronic wasting disease. ), a/k/a "mad deer disease," which has been detected in wild and captive deer and elk in 12 states (see "What About Mad Deer Disease?," Features, July/August 2001). First detected in 1967 in Colorado, the fatal neurological disease causes weight loss, stumbling and tremors. WD has spread slowly through the West and Midwest. About one percent of free-range deer and five percent of farmed deer are infected in Colorado and Wyoming. Scientists have found no conclusive evidence linking CWD in deer and elk to illness in human beings, but they cannot yet rule it out, especially since three relatively young people who regularly ate venison venison (vĕn`ĭzən) [O.Fr.,=hunting], term formerly applied to the flesh of any wild beast or game hunted and used for food but now restricted to the flesh of members of the deer family. have died from the similar Creutzfeld-Jakob diesase. CWD has now spread east to Oneida County, New York Oneida County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2000 census, the population was 235,469. The county seat is Utica. The name is in honor of the Oneida, an Iroquoian tribe that formerly occupied the region. , where recent tests of 420 wild deer turned up five with the illness. As a result, hunters in New York's Oneida and Madison Counties will be required to pass state checkpoints. CONTACT: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), agency of the U.S. Public Health Service since 1973, with headquarters in Atlanta; it was established in 1946 as the Communicable Disease Center. , (800)311-3435, www.cdc.gov. |
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