Zombie deer disease, which eats the brain, will probably spread to humans



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Hundreds of deer, elk and moose in the United States and Canada have already succumbed to the chronic wasting disease causing emaciation of the brain, known as "zombie deer disease". Scientists now fear that humans will inadvertently feed on meat from infected animals. Michael Osterholm, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Minnesota, estimates that as many as 15,000 infected animals are consumed by humans each year and could increase. "It is possible that the number of human cases is substantial and not an isolated event," he told USA Today. Osterholm compares the risk of human infection with mad cow disease that spread throughout the UK in the '80s and' 90s and which was also a so-called prion disease, known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. He warns that eating game is becoming more risky. "It's like throwing at the table of genetic roulette," he said. "If Stephen King could write a novel about infectious diseases, he would write it about prions." Animals often exhibit aggression before they collapse and eventually die.

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