While some past studies have suggested chronic wasting disease (CWD), or “zombie deer disease,” may “pose a risk to people,” the CDC says two hunters did not die from eating contaminated venison.
Concerns regarding chronic wasting disease have heightened following a case report surfaced of two hunters who developed neurological disorders and died following eating venison from a population of deer that may have been infected with “zombie deer disease.”
The report of the two hunters who died in 2022, presented in early April at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, did not prove the transmission of chronic wasting disease (CWD) from deer to humans, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio researchers wrote.
However, the researchers wrote, the case “emphasizes the need for further investigation into the potential risks of consuming CWD-infected deer and its implications for public health.”
There have been no cases of CWD in people reported to date, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But past studies raised concerns that CWD might “pose a risk to people,” the CDC has said, suggesting “it is important to prevent human exposures to CWD.”
The CDC reviewed the 2022 cases and considered the two men’s deaths as “part of the normal number of cases of CJD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) we see in the U.S.,” according to CDC epidemiologist Ryan Maddox.
Prion diseases, like CWD and CJD, are a class of fatal neurological disorders that can affect humans and animals. Certain proteins in the brain begin to fold abnormally, causing brain damage and other symptoms.
“A history of hunting and/or eating venison does not mean that someone got CJD that way,” Maddox said. “Many Americans hunt and even more eat venison. Some will develop sporadic CJD by chance and others will not.”
Chronic wasting disease (CWD), in deer, elk, and other animals, leads to weight loss, lack of coordination, stumbling, listlessness, drooling, and lack of fear of people, hence the term “zombie deer disease.” It was first identified in captive deer in Colorado in the late 1960s and has since been reported in wild deer, elk, and moose in 33 states.
Scientists have been concerned regarding CWD because mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), jumped to humans in the United Kingdom in the 1990s.
“We know that prion diseases can spread from animals to humans, as we saw with mad cow disease,” Maddox said. “Studies are ongoing to assess whether CWD might pose a risk to people. Increases in the annual number of CJD cases in the United States can be explained by the aging population, improved surveillance, and better testing.”
Aspects of the two hunters’ cases point to classic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), rather than a newer neurological disorder caused by CWD, according to Maddox. Prion diseases typically take many years to cause symptoms in people, and the men died from CJD either before or around the same time that CWD was found in the area where they hunted.
Ongoing studies do not show an increase in rates of CJD in hunters in Colorado. “Results so far have been reassuring,” Maddox said. “The number of cases of CJD or other prion disease in this hunting population has not been higher than what we would expect in the general population.”
While the CDC and researchers agree on the
