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12.08.2009

Mad deer disease can be transmitted to primates

The chance of humans contracting mad deer disease as a result of using infected Deer Velvet Extract is higher than we reported a few days ago. We base this opinion on a study that American biologists published in 2005 in the Journal of Virology. In this article the Americans demonstrated that the prion disease could be transmitted from one species to another. Moreover, it seems that primates – the order that also includes Homo sapiens – are also susceptible.

Mad deer disease is akin to mad cow disease. The disease was first recorded in American deer and reindeer in 1967. The disease, officially called Chronic Wasting Disease, gradually changes the brain into a sponge. Infected animals always die. They stop eating, lose contact with other animals, salivate, gnash their teeth and end up wandering around like zombies.

The disease is passed on through infected brain tissue and the velvet on deer antlers. The cause of the disease is probably a faulty prion: a strand of protein that is folded wrongly, and passes on these wrong folds to other proteins.

We wrote previously about experiments in which researchers injected mice with infected extracts of brain tissue and deer velvet and observed how the mice contracted mad deer disease. The brains of the mice used in the experiment had been genetically modified to resemble the brains of deer.

The 2005 study did not use genetically modified mice, but squirrel monkeys, which are closer to humans than mice are. When the researchers injected brain tissue from an infected deer into the monkeys' brains, they developed sponge-like structures 31 and 34 months later.

The photo above shows a section of brain tissue of a squirrel monkey 31 months after it had been injected with infected tissue. The white line represents a length of one hundred microns. The purple coloured elliptical shapes are damaged tissue.

A few cases of humans dying from a disease that Chronic Wasting Disease have been recorded in the US. Researchers at the CDC were too cautious to conclude that the victims had been suffering from mad deer disease. [Emerg Infect Dis. 2004 Jun;10(6):977-84.] Nor does the article also mention whether they had been using supplements.

Source:
J Virol. 2005 Nov;79(21):13794-6.

More:
'Elk Antler Velvet supplements may transmit mad deer disease' 10.08.2009
Rats not a gram heavier with Elk Velvet Antler 08.05.2009