In the United States, the disease has now been reported in 29 states, stretching from the origins of the infection in Colorado and Wyoming east to New York and south into Virginia. CWD also has been found in two Canadian provinces. In 2016, researchers identified the first cases of CWD in free-ranging reindeer in Norway. With the emergence of BSE and the discovery of prions as the agent responsible, scientists connected the dots and realized that prions also were the causative agent of CWD.Īlthough cases of BSE are exceedingly rare in the United States, cases of CWD are on the rise, and the disease is spreading across the country and around the world. Astute researchers noted the similarities between scrapie, a disease found in sheep, and chronic wasting disease.

Over the next 15 years, more and more cases of this mysterious disease were identified in other states and in several Canadian provinces. Initially thought to be due to inadequate food intake, subsequent monitoring identified a new disease, now called chronic wasting disease (CWD). In the late 1960s, the manager of a captive mule deer herd at the Colorado Division of Wildlife Foothills Wildlife Research Facility in Fort Collins noted that some of the herd appeared to be losing weight and were in poor body condition. In the 1990s, consumption of BSE-infected meat was linked to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, also a prion disease.Īnother Prion Disease - Chronic Wasting Disease Although the origin of BSE was identified, unanswered questions abounded about these bizarre molecules. They found that infectious prions, abnormal proteins, were causing the disease. Scientists quickly mobilized to discover the cause of BSE, rightly believing that an infectious agent had to be responsible.

Within a few months, the disease was spreading rapidly, triggering a worldwide health crisis. Updated Septem– In the closing days of 1984, when veterinarian David Bee was called out to look at a sick cow on a farm in Sussex, England, little did he realize that he was about to examine the first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) – mad cow disease – in the United Kingdom.

Farm fresh golden retrievers wyoming