Rogue Proteins

Five or six years ago, when I reported more frequently about prion diseases than I now do, a Canadian wildlife scientist told me about a looming threat involving chronic wasting disease in deer.

Scientists studying CWD, the deer equivalent of mad cow, were worried the disease would spread north, making its way into caribou herds. The potential for decimation of caribou populations was obvious; so too was the potential devastation such a development might wreak on First Nations people who rely on caribou meat. Not only would an important source of protein be threatened, but if CWD, like bovine spongiform encephalopathy before it, could make the species jump to infect people, then the way the animals are butchered and consumed could put the hunters and those who eat their kills on the path to developing a human form of this prion disease. Britain’s mad cow crisis could be replayed with...