On Tuesday, January 15, at 12:45 p.m., the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resources Finance Division committee will meet for the first time in the newly convened session for an afternoon of member introductions and rule sharing.
After that housekeeping, the committee will move on an update on expenditures by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in responding to the chronic wasting disease outbreak.
If that sounds wonky, you haven't been paying attention. Let's look at recent news coverage to understand one reason why the DNR's spending on the CWD outbreak is the first thing on the committee's agenda.
Just before Christmas,Northern Wilds' Shawn Perich reported in Osterholm sees human health risk in CWD:
Dr. Michael Osterholm is deeply concerned that overall efforts to halt the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in captive and wild populations of deer, elk and other members of the deer family, known to zoologists as cervids, fall far short of what is needed to limit the spread among cervids and prevent potential transmission to humans.
An expert in infectious disease and a public health scientist, Osterholm is the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. During his career, he has addressed world health issues such as biosecurity and antibiotic resistance, as well as diseases including HIV, influenza pandemics and Lyme disease. He frequently consults with national and international health organizations.
Thus far, CWD is found in cervids only, but Osterholm believes the disease poses a serious risk to human health. In Great Britain, a related brain disorder in cattle, commonly called Mad Cow Disease, was transferred to people during the 1980s and 90s after disease-contaminated beef products entered the human food supply. Osterholm said existing research about the risk of transmissions to humans isn’t conclusive. However, he predicts CWD will follow a similar path as Mad Cow Disease.
“I believe it’s just a matter of time until there is a deer-to-human transmission,” he says.
Osterholm’s prediction is based upon his knowledge of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), a degenerative brain disorder that creates tiny, sponge-like holes in brain tissue. CWD is a variant of the disorder, which includes the aforementioned Mad Cow Disease, scrapie in sheep and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in humans. These illnesses are caused by a modified form of a protein known as a prion. Scientists don’t understand why these prions enter and wreak havoc in the central nervous system. What they do know is that prion diseases are always fatal. The World Health Organization has recommended kee>Osterholm is concerned that many politicians and regulatory agencies are not taking the actions necessary to limit the spread of CWD in deer populations or prevent CWD-contaminated venison from entering the human food chain. Outbreaks of CWD seem to be accelerating in wild cervid populations across the U.S., often in the vicinity of where the disease was initially discovered on cervid farms. Osterholm and many wildlife biologists believe the movement of domesticated deer and elk among commercial operations has carried CWD across North America.
“When you look at the management of cervid farms, there is limited meaningful enforcement of regulations regarding the movement and containment of animals,” he said. “When captive animals break out of containment areas, this is the perfect situation for spreading the disease to wild cervids.”
In Minnesota, farmed cervids are regulated by the state Board of Animal Health. Wild cervids are the responsibility of the Minnesota DNR. A 2018 Legislative Audit was critical of the BAH’s CWD enforcement and record-keeping related to deer and elk farms in the state, concluding with a list of recommendations for the agency to improve its performance.
“The Minnesota Board of Animal Health has been a day late and a dollar short in enforcing the containment of farmed cervids in Minnesota,” Osterholm said. “The captive cervid industry keeps making excuses for years to protect deer farmers, which is plain B.S.”
Read the rest at Northern Wilds. Osterholm's views were reinforced Sunday in Forum Communications' John Myers' article, CWD battle heats up in Minnesota: Fatal deer disease keeps spreading, has crossed species:
With Minnesota wildlife officials scrambling this winter to slow the spread of chronic wasting disease among wild deer in southeastern counties, and 55 Wisconsin counties now identified as CWD sites, the impacts of the disease are hitting closer to the Northland.
CWD, now confirmed in 25 states and two provinces, is always fatal to cervids — whitetail and mule deer, moose and elk. Studies show that once it infects more than one-third of the population, entire herds may be decimated.
In parts of southern Wisconsin, more than 50 percent of the wild deer are now infected with CWD. So far, there is no antidote, no vaccine for deer, no way to get rid of it.
But it’s not just deer populations that are at stake — it could be the future of deer hunting. Even if wild deer somehow persist on the landscape, it’s unclear how many hunters would still want to hunt them if CWD remains a possible threat to people.
The disease has never been confirmed in people, but it’s very similar to mad cow disease, which crossed species and killed humans.
CWD, caused by mutated proteins called prions, already has crossed species to macaque monkeys that were fed infected meat in laboratory tests. Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and an expert on infectious diseases, puts the human danger bluntly.
“I do believe that it is not a matter of if, but when, CWD crosses to humans,’’ Osterholm told the News Tribune.
Read the entire article.
As for catching the committee hearing, the House's calendar doesn't list it as being live-streamed on video or audio, though that might change. If not, we'll link to the audio here.
Screengrab: Committee Chair Rick Hansen, DFL-S. St Paul shared the images at the top of this post of an informational tour he and fellow committee member Jamie Becker-Finn received from a DNR conservation officer in Fillmore County. Becker-Finn serves as the vice chair of the Minnesota House Environment and Natural Resource Policy Committee; Hansen also serves on the policy committee.
Via Hansen's official Facebook page.
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