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submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by john_browns_beard@hexbear.net to c/news@hexbear.net

The link is not 100% but two hunters eating from the same deer population and falling ill at around the same time is extremely unlikely to be a coincidence.

We are essentially one mutation away from this spreading between humans and that would be very, very bad.

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[-] emizeko@hexbear.net 55 points 7 months ago

chronic wasting disease is really tragic. that's chronic somebody could have smoked

[-] Sphere@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago

god fucking dammit I should not have laughed

[-] sourquincelog@hexbear.net 22 points 7 months ago

My ashtray with a pile of smushed prerolls all with a half-inch+ of flower

side-eye-1

side-eye-2

[-] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 11 points 7 months ago

Roll that shit into a generation joint

[-] sourquincelog@hexbear.net 12 points 7 months ago

In bourgeoisie decadence, I simply light a fresh j and move on

[-] frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 7 months ago

God the resin build up probably will give us all lung cancer but what a way to fryolate.

[-] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 7 points 7 months ago

Prerolls are for tearing open to load into your bong

[-] laziestflagellant@hexbear.net 32 points 7 months ago

It's going to be in the soil for a very long time yea

Hope the prion uptake from eating contaminated plants isn't too frequent

[-] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 26 points 7 months ago

Think your link's busted there

[-] john_browns_beard@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago

Lol whoops...fixed now. No idea how that happened but I do fondly remember those cops getting their asses kicked.

[-] Monsieur_bleu@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago

cwd isn't a virus, it doesn't mutate, it's prions

[-] Maoo@hexbear.net 17 points 7 months ago

True that it's not a virus but prions can mutate in the sense that they are just proteins like any other, produced according to their genes. The gene coding for the prion protein can mutate, producing a prion that is better at making, e.g., the human analog fold into a prion.

[-] Abracadaniel@hexbear.net 12 points 7 months ago

sure the coding gene can mutate but there's no feedback mechanism to make this more likely as the disease spreads like with a virus.

[-] Maoo@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Sure but the OP is correct.

[-] BigHaas@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago

They aren't produced according the their genes. They don't affect DNA like viruses do. They are a removed lower energy configuration of a protein. When the removed protein bumps into a healthy form of itself, the forces between the molecules pull the healthy protein into the prion shape. Then they go their separate ways, exponentially eating holes through tissues.

The protein targeted by CWD is different in cervids, it has like an extra loop that is important for its function. So if a CWD prion bumps into the human version of the protein, nothing happens. But, if some weird interaction allowed it to actually work, it's feasible a human prion could be created.

[-] Maoo@hexbear.net 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Prions are just proteins that can fold in a way that self-propagates by causing other instances of the same (or very similar) protein to also misfold the same way. This is how they cause infectious disease. The downstream impacts vary because it depends on what the misfolded protein actually does in addition to helping other instances misfold. Most often it just accumulates, avoiding destruction by the cell's usual mechanisms of destroying misfolded proteins (most prions that can't avoid this would be destroyed before we could even notice their existence). But even just accumulating a bunch of a prion can be devastating, as their mass can be disruptive and the actual functional amount of the normally folded protein becomes effectively nil.

But like all proteins, they are indeed still produced according to their genes. Proteins are generated through the transcription and translation processes.

[-] coeliacmccarthy@hexbear.net 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Prions are the best candidate IMO for a near-to-medium-term human extinction event. If a bad one gets a foothold then median human life expectancy will be like 12 years within a century or two and there'll be nothing to be done about it

You should probably be scareder of CWD and similar diseases TBQH IMHO PBJ

[-] Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida@hexbear.net 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's everywhere by now, isn't it? When the containment of a new disease is precarious like this, I usually assume the worst has already happened. The people in charge just aren't aware of it yet. If they are, they still don't want to tell the public out of fear of how destabilizing such news could be to the whole system.

[-] john_browns_beard@hexbear.net 18 points 7 months ago

The maps of affected wild herds only shows a few states, but I've seen deer here in NJ as far back as a decade ago that very much looked like they were sick with CWD. I wouldn't doubt that it's more widespread than we are aware of.

[-] Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida@hexbear.net 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

With so many possibilities of deer and cattle coming into contact in rural settings, I especially worry about my relatives that have cattle and occasionally hunt. I guess my mother had a point about never wanting to try any venison that they cooked.

[-] RyanGosling@hexbear.net 13 points 7 months ago

Wow this is just like my post apocalyptic TV show

[-] mactan@lemmy.ml 12 points 7 months ago
[-] AutomatedPossum@hexbear.net 23 points 7 months ago

Wait, that deer population has been known to have CWD and they were still like "hey, i guess these are good to eat"? tf is wrong with carnists?

[-] Infamousblt@hexbear.net 35 points 7 months ago

I mean this isn't even a carnist thing in as much as this is just a "MUH RIGHT TO PUT MYSELF AND ALL OF HUMANITY AT MASSIVE RISK" thing

[-] john_browns_beard@hexbear.net 23 points 7 months ago

Big "no one is going to tell me not to drink my own piss" energy

[-] jack@hexbear.net 11 points 7 months ago

a "MUH RIGHT TO PUT MYSELF AND ALL OF HUMANITY AT MASSIVE RISK" thing

so a carnist thing basically

[-] mactan@lemmy.ml 23 points 7 months ago

yep, there's even testing stations and they never get their flesh tested

[-] AutomatedPossum@hexbear.net 24 points 7 months ago

i am suddenly getting a very detailed idea of how these people behaved during the lockdowns

[-] Ocommie63@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 7 months ago

Where did this disease even come from?

[-] penitentkulak@hexbear.net 25 points 7 months ago

It's a certain protein that got misfolded, if it comes in contact with more of the original protein it causes that to also get misfolded. It can spread kinda similarly to a virus, via bodily fluids, animal-animal contact, in contaminated food/water, and by eating tainted meat in this case. Even if the deer was asymptomatic they can still spread the disease. The way the protein is folded causes it to be resistant to degradation so it can lay dormant for years or maybe decades in the environment. It causes horrifying symptoms causing deer to almost turn into zombies as their bodies waste away.

[-] Ocommie63@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 7 months ago
[-] penitentkulak@hexbear.net 14 points 7 months ago

Yeah it's not something to fuck with but we keep forcing factory farmed animals to eat animal by-products/waste, and overcrowd/stress wild animal populations.

[-] Ocommie63@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 7 months ago
[-] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 8 points 7 months ago

You and penitentkulak. We know what you're up to.

[-] StalinIsMaiWaifu@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 7 months ago

It's a prion, aka a protein which has gone wrong

The worst part about CWD is that it can sit in soil for a decade so once an area gets CWD, it will pretty much keep CWD

[-] POKEMONGOTOTHEGULAG@hexbear.net 11 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

If anything this just shows how cowardly hunters are. Who tf shoots a clearly diseased animal and then takes it home acting like they shot it on their own merits?

[-] coeliacmccarthy@hexbear.net 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

plenty of CWD deer don't show symptoms yet

[-] nephs@lemmygrad.ml 8 points 7 months ago

Putting it out of its misery and not wasting what could be good venison meat?

Sounds more merciful than shooting a young healthy animal.

But I don't know, I don't hunt.

[-] frauddogg@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 7 months ago

If the poor thing's visibly suffering from CWD, it absolutely is not good meat. When I was living in the sticks, I didn't know a single subsistence hunter who'd eat a visibly-diseased buck-- the sport hunters might've still gone after them, but I don't tolerate sport hunters in my physical locality, so I don't talk to them.

[-] nephs@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 7 months ago

Thanks for pointing out my mistake. :)

[-] Conyak@lemmy.tf 6 points 7 months ago

I lived in England in the 80s and I’m always terrified that I will find out I have vCJD. It’s believed that symptoms can take decades to show.

[-] anarchoilluminati@hexbear.net 5 points 7 months ago

How would it spread between humans? Bodily fluids?

this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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