Humans can acquire TB from deer | Hacker News Reader

Humans can acquire TB from deer

cdc.gov

46 pointsbookofjoe10 comments

A hunter in our area back at home told us this was an issue (this was something around a decade ago). Mentioned that he always checked his catch on-site for TB, and if it showed any symptoms he’d just leave it there. It’s not worth the risk.

This is pretty scary. Wisconsin has been tracking CWD[1] through the harvested heads of deer each fall despite no evidence that prions infecting deer jump to humans. This is different.

[1]: https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/wildlifehabitat/prevalence.html

Not sure why it's scary? In NZ we've got bovine TB, and you need to learn to identify it in animals you're butchering, deer can get it but wild pigs are more prone due to their predilection for scavenging carcasses - brushtail possums, an introduced pest from Australia, are the main vector for cattle, deer and pigs.

When I started hunting, I was taught, "don't eat the lumpy ones", and of course, always make sure you properly autopsy the animal, liver, lungs, heart etc. And if you shoot a TB infected animal, don't transport the offal (especially not the heads of pigs, for some reason bovine TB has a predilection for their jaws), and bury or burn it if you can to prevent scavenging and further infection.

https://ospri.co.nz/assets/Uploads/Documents/TB-Information-...

To the best of my knowledge,human infection by bovine TB in NZ is very rare since the introduction of pasteurisation, although large pest control efforts (using a controversial (with some) poison) are undertaken to control the brushtail possum population.

But I dunno, maybe we gut our deer differently to how they do in America or something?

As a Kiwi hunter, what scares me disease wise about American hunting compared to ours is the ticks the animals typically carry - and the ticks in the forests!

The ticks aren't so bad if you know how to pull them out of your skin.

I don't know, as someone who eats a lot of meat the idea of catching a meat allergy from a tick bite is pretty terrifying https://acaai.org/allergies/types/food-allergies/types-food-...

You can still eat poultry and fish if you have it. You just can't eat mammals. As someone who's mostly zero-carb, I find it scary too, but it's not a total catastrophe.

Wow one more weird reason to fear ticks. I wonder why ticks are such effective disease vectors.

It's more their reputation as a disease vector that scares me. We don't have very many ticks in NZ, and currently (let's see what climate change brings) no insect disease vectors, so not at all used to them.

I suspect you're not worried about them for the same reason I'm not worried about bovine TB - you know how to handle it.

Of course we can, but wolves are good cleaning it in wild mammals, and cattle is routinely watched for suspicious symptoms currently. TB is a common acronym for human tuberculosis. Here TB means the disease caused by Bovine Tuberculosis, a different organism that makes just for a small part of the cases in humans, does not necessarily develop symptoms or adverse effects and can remain indetectable on carriers for a indefinite amount of time.

Fishermen have also their own mycobacteriosis. Is interesting that picking tuberculosis by fishes is impossible because the organism in this case can't stand our inner temperature. They cause a totally different set of symptoms on humans

There are some who believe Jane Austen died of bovine TB.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6692503/J...

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