Market Farming

[Betsy <blevy AT rsocsun.tamu.edu>]

I know prion articles have been cited in this thread, in case any of you 
haven't seen
some of the articles and are interested -

Rare, animal-borne disease a medical mystery

Officials examine Maine deer in hunt for clues

By Terry J. Allen - Boston Globe Correspondent

New England is entwined in a medical mystery that stretches across species and
the country. The clues raise more questions than answers: Three young people,
one with links to Maine, have contracted an extremely rare, infectious disease
that leads to dementia and death. A strikingly similar disease is killing
thousands of deer and elk in the western United States. Elk farms in New
England, which cater to an Asian market for aphrodisiacs, are importing
animals that officials warn could spread the infection.

And in the background looms the specter of mad cow disease, the British
epidemic responsible for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cattle, the
devastation of the British beef industry, and the death, so far, of more than
40 people.

Researchers are struggling to determine if these factors are part of the same
trail of evidence or if they are connected only by coincidence and fear.

Either way, there is no denying that federal researchers are worried. How else
to explain why a US Department of Agriculture official came to Maine last
month to supervise a ''harvest'' of 299 heads from deer shot during the fall
hunting season? ''They used a fancy spoon to scoop out a portion near the
brain stem for analysis,'' said Mark Caron, a Maine wildlife biologist.

The reasoning behind the examination of deer brains? One of the young victims
of the rare disease who lived in the South had, years before her death, eaten
meat from deer her father had shot in Maine.

The Maine samples are part of a nationwide investigation into a family of
diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSE, that do
similar damage to the brains of different mammals deer, elk, sheep, cattle,
cats, mink, and humans. But they are subtly different illnesses. And until mad
cow disease the bovine TSE hit Britain and apparently spread to people who ate
infected beef, most scientists believed TSEs did not jump from one species to
another.

The possibility that Chronic Wasting Disease, the TSE that affects deer and
elk has made the leap to humans is what had federal researchers concerned
enough to survey Maine.

The 28-year-old woman who ate Maine deer died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
the human TSE. There are only five reported Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases per
billion worldwide in people 30 years old or under, according to Lawrence
Schonberger of the federal Centers for Disease Control.

Yet, since 1996, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has been detected in three
Americans in that age group; two are dead and one is dying. All three, it
turns out, had hunted extensively or eaten venison.

''It may be a coincidence,'' said Dr. Pierluigi Gambetti, professor of
pathology and director of the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance
Center at Case Western University in Cleveland, where the Centers for Disease
Control sends its human brain samples. ''It would be imprudent to say there is
a danger of an epidemic. But, yes, it's something that has to be studied.''

Said Thomas Pringle, a biochemist who runs a Web site on TSEs: ''What has CDC
worried is that the original tipoff in Britain that something was wrong was
the upsurge in cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in young people.''

The CDC medical epidemiologist, Ermias Belay, citing a Red Cross survey,
emphasized that since 40 percent of Americans have eaten wild venison at least
once, the three cases could be explained by chance alone. ''If there had been
one more,'' he said, ''it might tip the balance.''

But, countered Michael Hansen, a research associate at Consumer's Union,
''Given how rare the disease is in young people and how difficult it is to
make a diagnosis, the possibility that some cases go undetected cannot be
ruled out.'' That is what nearly happened last year in Utah to Tracie McEwan.
The young wife and mother of two watched desperately as, over a few months,
her 28-year-old husband, Doug, lost motor control and memory, became
disoriented, and suffered dramatic mood swings.

''After doctors performed hundreds of tests,'' Tracie recalled, ''I saw a
television show about mad cow disease.'' She demanded the doctors test for
Creutzfeld-tJakob disease. A brain biopsy confirmed her fears.

''We have decided to get pretty aggressive, primarily because of the situation
in Britain,'' said the CDC's Schonberger. He emphasized, however, that ''none
of the three cases has been linked to chronic wasting disease in deer and elk.

While the threat to humans remains theoretical, the danger of the disease
within deer and elk populations is real and growing. ''It's been spreading
slowly since it was first found in the wild in 1981,'' said Beth Williams, a
professor of veterinary services with the University of Wyoming. Chronic
wasting disease is now a major problem in Colorado and Wyoming, infecting 4 to
8 percent of the 62,000 deer there and 1 percent of elk, she said.

In states other than Wyoming and Colorado, tests on 4,500 seemingly healthy
wild animals have found no evidence of disease, but that sampling does not
fully allay scientists' concerns. TSEs are caused by prions, a puzzling
protein-like substance that is extremely difficult to detect or kill. Prions
can remain infectious on correctly sterilized surgical instruments and have
been transmitted through corneal transplants, growth hormones, and meat that
has been thoroughly cooked.

They are also apparently passed among deer and elk by routine kinds of
contact. Outbreaks of chronic wasting disease have spread among farmed elk not
only in Colorado and Wyoming, but in other parts of the West, forcing the
destruction of herds and the quarantining of farms. Montana saw its first
confirmed case last month.

So far New England appears to be free of the disease, but the chance of
infection rises with the number of western elk shipped east to supply the
region's growing elk farming industry. The animals are prized for the velvet
on their antlers, believed in some parts of Asia to be aphrodisiacs.

''Elk farming is the recipe for introducing CWD into areas where it has not
existed before,'' said Dr. Victor Nettles, director of the Southeastern
Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study, referring to chronic wasting disease.

''We are at the extremely initial stage of awareness and monitoring,'' warned
Robert Deblinger, assistant director of the Massachusetts Wildlife Division.
''But states need to be aggressive. It's only going to get worse, so it's
important to be vigilant. That is the only way you keep the diseases out.''

Of immediate concern to New England's wildlife managers is the health of
native deer, which support the region's multibilliondollar hunting industry.
Since there is a two- to five-year incubation period and no reliable test for
live animals, apparently healthy elk can harbor and spread the disease.

The elk-trading network is extensive and loosely regulated. Paperwork that
accompanies each elk to Vermont, for example, tells only where the animal was
bought, not where it was a year or even a month before. And if the herd it
passed through later has an outbreak of chronic wasting disease, there are no
procedures to trace exposed elk or issue warnings.

Vermont, Maine, and New Hampshire have not formally notified elk farmers to be
on the lookout for neurological symptoms, nor do they require reporting of
suspicious symptoms. In Vermont, when one of the state's 250 captive elk dies,
the owner may comply with a voluntary program for testing.

''From the standpoint of protecting wildlife,'' said Steve Weber, chief of New
Hampshire's Wildlife Division, ''a ban on elk farming is the prudent thing to
do, but when balanced against existing industry, there are tradeoffs you
make.'' New Hampshire has a handful of elk farms and a few hundred elk, Weber
estimated.

So far, Massachusetts is the only New England state to ban elk farming.
''Anytime you want to fence in a wild animal it's going to get out,'' warned
Robert Deblinger, assistant director of the Massachusetts Wildlife Division.
''We worry about interbreeding and genetic pollution as well as the
introduction of chronic wasting disease.''

That infected western elk can transmit TSE to native New England deer is
established science. The more troubling and as yet unsolved mystery is
whether, like its bovine counterpart, chronic wasting disease can, or has,
jumped species to infect humans.

http://www.headwatersnews.org/121499madcow.html
==========================================================

State uncertain how to dispose of game farm elk carcasses

By Duncan Adams - The Montana Standard

PHILIPSBURG, MT - One phone-poll wag said the dead elk should be spaceship
cargo.

"I say they should send the bodies to Mars, because that's where we've been
losing everything else," said the caller, in reference to NASA's ill-fated
Mars Polar Lander and companion probes.

Another participant in the poll conducted by a Great Falls newspaper suggested
burying a couple of the elk in Gov. Marc Racicot's front yard.

But, at this writing, the 81 dead elk stored in plastic-lined Dumpsters at the
David Kesler game farm near Philipsburg are akin to carcasses without a
country. State officials face a situation reminiscent of the infamous
wandering garbage barge that returned forlornly to anchor in New York Bay in
May 1987 after its cargo was rejected by six states and three countries.

Nobody wants the elk. Nobody wants them because they could be infected with
chronic wasting disease - a malady that is fatal to deer and elk and could
present a serious health risk to other species, including cattle and humans.
Chronic wasting disease, like "mad cow" disease in cattle or Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease in humans, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). The
TSEs produce tiny, sponge-like holes in the nerve cells of brain and upper
spinal cord tissue.

During an interview Friday, Dr. Arnold Gertonson, state veterinarian, shared
his frustration about finding a disposal method or site that is both
politically palatable and scientifically prudent.

"In the last few days, people have been saying, 'We don't want them here, we
don't want them there,'" Gertonson said. "But they're not telling me where
they want the elk or how they want them handled or at what cost."

Ultimately, the barge garbage was incinerated. Gertonson and other Department
of Livestock officials are considering a similar solution for the disposal of
the elk after many residents of Cascade County expressed opposition to burying
the animals in a landfill north of Great Falls. But incineration is expensive.
Gertonson said research suggests burial can be a safe and reasonable
alternative.

Livestock officials began killing the elk Dec. 7. They used a series of three
injections. The first contained a muscle relaxant; the second was analgesic;
and the third, containing potassium chloride, stopped the animal's heart.

"It was a very humane operation," said Tim Feldner, commercial wildlife
permitting program manager for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and
Parks. "The animals didn't feel a thing."

But strong feelings have been stirred among Montanans in recent weeks about
the state's handling of the Kesler herd, specifically, and about its response
more generally to the threat of chronic wasting disease.

Stan Frasier, past president of the Montana Wildlife Federation, said wildlife
advocates have warned state officials repeatedly that game farms could breed
disease.

"For years we've been trying to tell the Legislature and the livestock
industry that game farming is a disease threat. And they have completely
ignored us," Frasier said. "They have ignored or tried to downplay this
disease problem for years and now it's come back to bite them in the butt."

But Frasier and other wildlife federation officials - including John Kober,
director of field operations, and Craig Sharpe, interim director - said Friday
they find no satisfaction in being prophetic. The stakes are too high, Sharpe
said.

"If you look at our heritage and at the importance of wildlife to Montana, if
you look at the history of Montana and the role that wildlife plays here, the
stakes are substantial," Sharpe said.

Kober agreed. He said if chronic wasting disease is detected in big-game
populations, Montana's hunters will face potentially discomfiting decisions.

"If CWD gets into elk and deer populations, every Montanan should ask
themselves the questions: 'Will I go hunting? Is the risk worth the pursuit of
the sport and the sense of heritage that accompanies that pursuit?'" Kober
said. "My guess is that if every hunter has to ask themselves that question,
we're going to lose some hunters, we're going to lose some activists and some
advocacy."

Chronic wasting disease has been detected in wild deer and elk in northeastern
Colorado and southeastern Wyoming. In a September 1998 memo to Racicot, Pat
Graham, director of FWP, described precautions hunters in those states have
been advised to heed.

"Although there is no clear evidence that CWD affects people, Wyoming and
Colorado are recommending that hunters not shoot animals that look sick,"
Graham wrote. "They are further suggesting that hunters wear rubber gloves
when field dressing game; minimize contact with brain and spinal cord tissue
in areas where CWD is endemic; don't eat brains or spinal cord tissues; and
that they bone out the meat and discard the brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen
and lymph nodes to minimize exposure."

But Dr. Bruce Chesebro, a researcher with years of experience studying
spongiform encephalopathies, scoffs at these precautions. At Chesebro's lab in
Hamilton researchers use autoclaves and lye to sterilize their instruments,
something he imagines hunters aren't likely to do with hunting knives.

Meanwhile, although no one can say for sure whether CWD spreads from game
farms to wild animals or from wildlife to "alternative livestock," the Kesler
experience has increased scrutiny of this unique livestock industry.

The Department of Livestock decided to "depopulate" the Kesler herd after an
elk that died in October was later diagnosed with CWD. The Kesler game farm
had been under quarantine since June 1998 after a dead elk at an Oklahoma game
farm was diagnosed with CWD. Officials believed that elk had been transported
to Oklahoma from the Kesler farm. A second elk, also traced to the Kesler farm
and similarly posthumously diagnosed with CWD, died in June 1999 in Oklahoma.

Elk from the Kesler farm also have been shipped elsewhere.

"Some went to (a game farm in) Hardin," Gertonson said. "Some went to
Oklahoma. And one animal went to Missouri and is now located in a game farm in
Iowa."

The Great Falls Tribune reported Saturday that the state is considering
slaughtering the Hardin herd because of its potential exposure to chronic
wasting disease. Kober said the Montana Wildlife Federation is concerned about
the whereabouts of other animals that might have come from the Kesler herd.

"We know this has been a closed herd since 1990. But where did Kesler sell
animals prior to 1990?" Kober asked. "How many other game farms in this state
have Kesler animals? We want the Department of Livestock to answer that
question, and we haven't heard anything back yet."

The Kesler family has not responded to requests for interviews. On Saturday,
when a reporter telephoned the Kesler home, a man who described himself as
David Kesler's son said his father wasn't home and then hung up.

Graham, too, acknowledged that the stakes are high for Montana's wildlife and
sportsmen when the potential threat of chronic wasting disease is considered.

"A disease like CWD is certainly more troubling than some of the other
problems we've had to address simply because of the difficulty to detect it,
the lack of knowledge about how it is transmitted, and all the other
uncertainties about the disease," he said.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks will continue to monitor game farms, he said, and to
evaluate safeguards designed to lessen the risk of disease transmission from
captive animals to wildlife.

"If we decide the safeguards aren't adequate then, in my opinion, we'll have
to do what is necessary. Because I don't believe the public is going to
tolerate a diminishment of their wildlife populations as a result of something
like this," he said.
------------------

Disease in game farm elk spotlights contentious issues

By Duncan Adams - The Montana Standard

HELENA - The detection early last month of chronic wasting disease in a dead
game-farm elk in Montana has dumped a sack load of logistical and political
hot potatoes in the laps of state officials.

The contentious issues include debate about how the animal's herd should be
slaughtered and about what to do with the potentially infectious carcasses.
The crisis at the David Kesler game farm near Philipsburg also has provided
fresh ammunition for ongoing skirmishes about Montana's game farm industry.

And then there's the money involved - both for the slaughter and cleanup
operation and the reimbursement of the animals' owner for their "taking" by
the state.

On Friday, state veterinarian Dr. Arnold Gertonson estimated the work to date
at the Kesler farm - where 81 elk carcasses remain stored in plastic-lined
Dumpsters - has cost approximately $10,000. That figure will increase once the
state decides how to dispose of the carcasses. If the state elects
incineration, costs could approach $80,000, said Gertonson.

Gertonson said the Department of Livestock will pay for the slaughter and
related cleanup at the farm. And because the department is funded in large
part by per capita head taxes on livestock, "livestock producers end up
footing most of the bill here," he said.

The Department of Livestock also will pay $50 per elk to the Keslers to
reimburse them for their slaughtered herd.

"In this country, we do not take private property without due compensation,"
he said. "You have to provide at least some compensation."

Instead of agreeing to the destruction of their elk herd, the Keslers, by law,
could have opted for a four-year quarantine, Gertonson said. And they will end
up settling for a lot less than the market value of the animals, he said.
According to Gertonson, cow elk can fetch $4,000; a bull elk can sell for
$1,000 and a calf for $700.

The Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks has offered to pitch in an
additional $50 an elk. And Gertonson said the Montana Alternative Livestock
Producers organization has pledged another $50 a head and that the North
American Elk Breeders "told me they thought they could contribute $350 per
elk."

The Montana Wildlife Federation has criticized FWP's decision to chip in for
the elk. Pat Graham, director of FWP, has responded that the contribution
helped ensure the herd's destruction - an outcome he said he believes helps
safeguard the state's wildlife.

"There was a fork in the road when the operator had to choose, and I wanted
him to choose the fork that led to the destruction of those animals," said
Graham. "I felt it was in the best interests of the wildlife populations and,
frankly, of the sportsmen in Montana to eliminate that source of disease
completely. Even though a quarantine, in theory, would isolate the disease,
there are just too many uncertainties about CWD."

Graham described the $50 from FWP "as a token amount, really."

But Craig Sharpe, interim director of the Montana Wildlife Federation, and
Josh Turner, MWF president, have both said the spending of sportsmen's dollars
on game-farm animals is a bitter pill to swallow.

"We understand Pat's reasoning of trying to get the animals destroyed with
some immediacy," said Sharpe. "But we don't feel sportsmen's dollars should be
used to pay for these animals and we will stick to that to the end."

John Kober, MWF's director of field operations, said he disagreed with
Gertonson's suggestion early this week that Kesler's decision to allow the
state to slaughter his herd was a sacrifice that deserves recognition.

"Dr. Gertonson talks about David Kesler as being some sort of hero for
offering up these animals to be destroyed," said Kober. "The reality is,
Kesler had a history of problems (including an earlier herd quarantine for
tuberculosis) on that game farm. And these animals aren't worth a red cent."

Kesler could not be reached for comment.

Kober also argued that the state has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars
near Yellowstone National Park fighting the spread of brucellosis by bison,
but seems unwilling to spend what it takes to deal appropriately with the
Kesler herd's disposal.

"They spare no cost in the treatment and eradication of brucellosis, yet they
try to spare every cost in the treatment of chronic wasting disease. There's a
big double standard here," Kober said.

Gertonson reported that the state spent more than $300,000 last fiscal year on
bison control. But he scoffed at Kober's suggestion of a double standard.

"I find that difficult to understand," he said. "In this (Kesler) herd, we had
one animal positive (for CWD) and this herd has been entirely depopulated. If
anything, we're being tougher on this issue than we are on brucellosis."

http://www.billingsgazette.com/ - 12/14/99