There’s the problem of the fat tail—CWD is insanely good at spreading, with constant shedding of prions by the infected. Deer with CWD can very effectively spread the disease through their saliva and mucus, whereas BSE requires cannibalism of neural tissues. Probably nothing major happens and it doesn’t cross over to humans. But what happens if it does?
Consider what happens if a disease as infectous, deadly, with long incubation times as CWD crosses over to humans. What if the incubation time is 10 years in humans? That would be enough time to infect every human on Earth (I don’t think that would kill everyone due to genetic differences).
This is a major point that the author does not address. The author assumes that CWD risk is low because BSE risk was low. But there is a huge difference between BSE and CWD that is mentioned in this very article: BSE is largely restricted to neural tissues, whereas CWD is in basically all tissues and bodily fluids. The BSE infectivity numbers would only apply to a disease that is restricted to tissues that are generally not consumed
There’s the problem of the fat tail—CWD is insanely good at spreading, with constant shedding of prions by the infected. Deer with CWD can very effectively spread the disease through their saliva and mucus, whereas BSE requires cannibalism of neural tissues. Probably nothing major happens and it doesn’t cross over to humans. But what happens if it does?
Consider what happens if a disease as infectous, deadly, with long incubation times as CWD crosses over to humans. What if the incubation time is 10 years in humans? That would be enough time to infect every human on Earth (I don’t think that would kill everyone due to genetic differences).
This is a major point that the author does not address. The author assumes that CWD risk is low because BSE risk was low. But there is a huge difference between BSE and CWD that is mentioned in this very article: BSE is largely restricted to neural tissues, whereas CWD is in basically all tissues and bodily fluids. The BSE infectivity numbers would only apply to a disease that is restricted to tissues that are generally not consumed