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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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For now...

CWD cases have rapidly expanded from a handful of states a few years ago to more than half of the US and most of Canada. Overpopulation, indirect contact transmission in deer, and durable environmental contamination are going to mix in a nasty way for the next few decades. Several states already have incidence rates in double digit percentages of the statewide deer populations.

And there's moderately compelling evidence of venison-to-human transmission.

Whether or not the venison-eating population is fine today, I personally don't like the odds, and it doesn't look better in 10 or 20 years. Even if transmissibility between deer and humans is poor, nobody knows for sure. I don't want to take the risk with a guaranteed-fatal deadly disease affecting single- or double-digit percentages of the North American deer population, that can't be reliably detected without a lab examination, for which the trigger is a protein that is stable below 1000°F and is unaffected by stomach acid.