Consumers of “health supplement” may be at risk, study says-
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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Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University with specialties in natural resource politics, public opinion, interest groups, political parties, voting and elections. Aside from academic publications, he is author or co-author of three hiking/backpacking guides, and he is President of the Western Watersheds Project.
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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.””