Protein linked to wasting disease found in elk antler velvet. Consumers of health supplement may be at risk, study says. By Hanneke Brooymans. The Edmonton Journal.
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Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan’s Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of “Hiking Idaho.” He also wrote “Beyond the Tetons” and “Backpacking Wyoming’s Teton and Washakie Wilderness.” He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
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You can read the primary data here:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/index.htm
Summary from intro below: interesting data in that they did all of the right experiments. But this is a highly contrived system that is meant to be extremely sensitive: that is its purpose. Risk to humans is nil (unless you express deer/elk prions proteins) but it could be a real route for animal to animal transmission.
“””We used CWD-susceptible transgenic (Tg) mice as a sensitive means to detect prions in antler velvet. Bioassays in Tg mice expressing deer prion protein (PrP) (4) and newly created Tg mice expressing elk PrP, demonstrated low levels of CWD prions in antler velvet. We also show that the associated protease-resistant PrP could be amplified in vitro (for detection by Western blot) by protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA). Finally, comparative CWD transmissions in Tg mice indicated that the glutamine (Q) to glutamic acid (E) variation at residue 226, which is the sole primary structural difference between deer and elk PrP, may be a major determinant of CWD pathogenesis in these 2 species.””