Scientists fear chronic wasting disease protein could spawn new human illness

[The Straight Story]

New laboratory research suggests that prions from chronic wasting disease in deer could infect people and create an entirely new kind of brain disorder.

The research is not proof that chronic wasting disease can infect people, but advances what science knows about that fear.

The researchers cautioned that the ability of chronic wasting disease prions to infect human brain tissue and cause disease could take years or decades of the disease first passing between deer in the wild, and might not occur at all.

"CWD is possibly the most worrisome prion zoonosis (animal disease that infects people) because it affects free-ranging animals, making it difficult to control its spread and because it is highly efficiently transmitted (among deer)," the researchers wrote. "Our results have far-reaching implications for human health."

The research, conducted by prominent scientists in the field of prion disease from four universities, was published last month in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

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