PHOTO BY GAME WARDEN MICHEAL HOPPER, KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF WILDLIFE, PARKS AND TOURISMI
N DECEMBER 2014, research-
ers announced success using a
vaccine for chronic wasting dis-
ease (CWD) in deer. They pub-
lished a paper in the journal “Vac-
cine,” and I can tell you that afer read-
ing that study (“Mucosal immunization
with an attenuated Salmonella vaccine
partially protects white-tailed deer from
chronic wasting disease”), the research
was difficult, detailed, very technical,and not the easiest reading for a lay-
person, or someone without a medical,
science-based background. In short, the
methodology for conducting and ana-
lyzing the data garnered from this study
was extremely complex.
By now, unless you have been living
in a cave, you know that CWD is found
in deer in growing numbers, and it is a
major threat to our deer herds. In fact,
this threat to future deer herds cannotbe overemphasized, regardless of what
deer game farm folks tell us. CWD is a
“prion” illness in which certain proteins
change to a pathological and infectious
form. Te infected deer may go several
years before showing signs of the dis-
ease, and the infected prions are passed
via mucous and urine to other deer or to
the ground. Tese prions are literally in-
destructible and remain viable for years,
and thus pose a threat to other deer. Up
until now there was no cure for this dif-
fcult disease problem.
The real stimulus for this research
came about because of another prion
disease — Mad Cow Disease. When
Mad Cow crossed the species barrier to
humans, and deaths occurred, interest
in a cure grew. Without that happening,
major funding for studies on CWD that
could lead to a vaccine would probably
not have occurred.
What I’d like to do here is to cook the
study down into terms we can under-
stand, discuss the fndings, and then dis-
cuss where we go from here. Tis study
describes a frst step in the potential to
stop the spread of CWD, but it may take
years to get there. Tat said, I can tell
you this. As a former biologist and uni-
versity professor in wildlife with some
knowledge of whitetails, and knowing
that prion diseases have been around
for many years with only slow progress
in prevention in humans, this frst step is
extremely exciting.
In a nutshell, here is what the folks
from the New York University School
of Medicine (along with others from
Colorado State University, a university
in Uruguay and one in the United King-
dom, as well as researchers from the
University of Georgia) did. Eleven deer
were exposed to CWD. All deer lived to-
gether, so if a deer got CWD, all the oth-
ers were exposed. Subsequently, all deerKnow Hunting
The First Step To CWD
Vaccine Success
Conservation EditorThere is some exciting news in the fght against the spread of CWD.
DR. DAVE SAMUEL
32 >BOWHUNTER APRIL/MAY 2015A game warden photographed this
wild, emaciated, CWD-stricken
deer standing next to a shed in
Sheridan County, Kansas.