- Many states do not have budgets to include surveillance
for Chronic Wasting Disease. New York is one of those States. I was unable
to get any State Wildlife assistance in regard to a deer that exhibited
neurological symptoms consistant with CWD. The Wildlife Pathologist would
test for CWD, however, I would have to do the entire procedure of finding,
killing, decapitating and sending of fthe deer head to pathology. Given
the fact that CWD is spreading from State to State so rapidly, CWD research
is important.
-
- Patricia
-
- [1] Date: 8 Apr 2004 From: ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
Source: The Billings Gazette [edited] <http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display
- =rednews/2004/04/07/build/state/20-chronic-wasting.inc>
-
-
- Wildlife disease experts seek aid; chronic wasting disease
called threat to regional economy ----------------------------------
-
- Experts in chronic wasting disease told members of the
US Senate on Tuesday that states are digging deep into their own pockets
because the federal government is not spending enough to monitor and research
the illness.
-
- They told members of a Senate Environment and Public
Works subcommittee that lawmakers don't need to create new organizations
to fight the deer and elk disease -- instead, they should get out their
checkbooks. "Federal and state agencies involved in this endeavor
concur that, collectively, all the authorities that are necessary to manage
this disease currently exist in law," said Gary Taylor, who is the
legislative director for the International Association of Fish and Wildlife
Agencies. "What is most needed are adequate congressional appropriations
to the federal agencies involved both for their efforts and to pass through
to the state, fish and wildlife agencies, state universities and state
agriculture departments, to manage CWD," he said.
-
- Missoula resident and Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance
project leader Gary Wolfe told lawmakers that states are siphoning money
from other priorities to combat chronic wasting disease, a transmissible
neurological disease that produces small lesions in the brains of infected
animals. "The CWD Alliance is particularly concerned that this redirection
of limited wildlife agency funds is not adequate to address the CWD issue,
and will have negative impacts on other important wildlife management and
conservation programs," Wolfe said.
-
- Cases of chronic wasting disease were first identified
in Wyoming in the late 1960s, and the disease was identified as a transmissible
spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) in 1978. It is similar to bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, and the sheep
disease scrapie. Although chronic wasting disease is contagious among deer
and elk, there has been no evidence of transmission from deer and elk to
humans, cattle or other domestic livestock.
-
- E Tom Thorne, who is a veterinarian and wildlife disease
consultant for the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, said CWD efforts are
drawing department personnel away from other priorities. "It's a big
area of concern," Thorne said. "Probably a multitude of programs
are suffering. CWD monitoring is very manpower-intensive. They had to call
on game wardens and hatchery personnel and basically everyone to pitch
in. If there was a warden collecting CWD samples, he wasn't out there patrolling."
-
- Senators were told that USD 52 million has been spent
for monitoring and research of chronic wasting disease since 2003. The
federal government provided USD 16.4 million in fiscal year 2003 and USD
18.5 million in fiscal year 2004. During those 2 years, states provided
USD 18 million. The Bush administration has asked for USD 23.1 million
for fiscal year 2005.
-
- Senators were concerned that the administration's budget
proposal would provide only USD 4.2 million for research. "It just
seems to me that USD 4.2 million is kind of meager considering the implications
on wildlife," Sen Wayne Allard, R-Colo, said. Chronic wasting disease
has been found in wild elk and deer in Wyoming, but only on game farms
in Montana.
-
- While it is still unclear if chronic wasting disease
can be transmitted to humans, a jump in chronic wasting disease cases represents
a greater threat to the economies of Montana and Wyoming than to the public's
health.
-
- [byline: Ted Monoson]
-
- ****** [2] Date: 8 Apr 2004 From: ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
- Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [edited]
- <http://www.cdc.gov/washington/testimony/In2242004186.htm>
-
- CDC's role in monitoring for transmissible spongiform
encephalopathies ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- Statement of Julie L Gerberding, MD, MPH, director, Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, US Department of Health and Human Services,
before the Committee on Appropriations US Senate: "Although CDC's
investigations to date have not identified strong evidence for a causal
link between CWD and human illness, the conversion of human prion protein
to the disease causing form by CWD-associated prions has been demonstrated
in a cell-free experimental study performed at a National Institute of
Health laboratory. This finding and the transmission of BSE to humans indicate
that humans may not be completely protected from infection by the CWD agent.
-
- -- ProMED-mail <promed@promedmail.org>
-
- [It must be remembered that absence of surveillance does
not mean absence of disease. States where CWD has not already been documented
have been told that there will be little or no federal funding for CWD
surveillance in 2004. Although exercising caution with any of the TSE diseases
is appropriate, the leap from a cell-free experiment to human disease is
huge. - Mod.TG]
-
-
- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD Please visit my "Emerging
Diseases" message board at: http://www.clickitnews.com/ubbthreads/postlist.php?Cat=&Board=emergingdiseases
Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
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