Hey @Prwler, I thought you might also be interested:
-since you mentioned CWD I did some initial reading on the topic
-currently it is flagged as a risk of transmission with some suspected cases but nothing definitely proven. keep an eye out for "spontaneous Crutzfeld-Jakob" diseases as there may be correlation, even cause.
-the CWD prions exist in the whole animal. Even urine and saliva supposedly contain it. Of course, I would expect neural tissue to have higher concentrations
-CDC advises to not eat infected animals out of concern for crossover to humans
-prions take a very high temperature to denature, like 700-900°F degrees. No mention was made as to the effectiveness of acids, bases, or proteolytic enzymes.
-I did not look into if there was any sort of quick and cheap field test. Animals that are behaving / visibly impaired by CWD are obviously gone.
-(commonly known) prion diseases take a long time to manifest symptoms. There are no known cures for these types of diseases.
Perhaps you already knew this; I certainly did not know these details.
On a related topic, risk of prion-like disease was one of the first things that came to mind when they started saying how they were going to fight an overhyped flu by di**ing around with people's mitochondrial DNA. And then fools volunteered to get it!
