What is CWD?
Chronic wasting disease (CWD), a part of a family of diseases referred to as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), is a disease of the brain and central nervous system of cervids such as mule deer, white-tailed deer and elk. A World Health Organization report indicates that there is some evidence of genetic resistance to CWD among wapiti, but not among the other deer species. Other forms of TSE include scrapie, which is widely found in sheep, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which affects cattle, and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in humans (CJD). Other animals that contract TSEs include cats, mink and squirrels. Scientists have studied scrapie in sheep for more than 200 years. Despite the consumption of scrapie-infected sheep for hundreds of years, no case of scrapie or variant CJD has ever occurred, or has even been suggested to have occurred in humans.
