The number of deer infected with Chronic Wasting Disease has risen to 12 as the DNR continues its testing of the state's whitetail population.  All of the infectious cases have thus far been found near Mt. Horeb, in Dane County, where the disease was first detected.

Meanwhile, state officials are weighing options that could blunt the outbreak.  One move included the recent passage of state game farm legislation.  The more than 500 deer and elk farms scattered around the state are thought to be one likely source for the outbreak of Chronic Wasting Disease, or CWD.  Prior to its discovery near Mt. Horeb, the fatal brain disease had never been detected east of the Mississippi.

The new legislation, sponsored by Rep. DuWayne Jonsrud and Sen. Rod Moen, requires health certificates for deer and elk raised on Wisconsin game farms.  It also demands that owners of game farms located outside Wisconsin's borders demonstrate that their captive herds have been free of CWD for five years before any of the animals will be allowed into Wisconsin.

But one outspoken critic sees the move as too little and too late.  John Stauber calls the action "disastrously inadequate."  Stauber, the co-author of the book Mad Cow, USA and a Madison resident, says the new law "will do little or nothing to stem the introduction and spread of CWD in Wisconsin."

According to Stauber, CWD most likely entered Wisconsin from infected game farm animals.  "The best evidence," he says, "indicates that CWD has been and is being spread across North America, effectively seeded into states and provinces, by trafficking in farmed deer and elk that appear healthy but are infectious with CWD.  From deer and elk farms the disease escapes into wild populations."

Stauber's also been digging up records that reveal the state's footdragging in the face of an epidemic.

Four years ago, state officials were alerted to the possible presence of game farm animals infected with CWD.  On April 17, 1998, Nebraska State Veterinarian Larry Williams sent a memo to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture informing them that a Nebraska Elk Ranch, with a CWD infected herd, was shipping animals to a game farm near West Bend, WI.

Later in 1998, a DNR staffer sent materials to DNR chief George Meyer, the head of the Dep't. of Agriculture, and to Gov. Thompson's office.  Steven Miller's September memo described how CWD could spread into the state's deer population and called for a moratorium on the importation of all game farm animals into Wisconsin until an adequate test for the disease was developed.  Montana had adopted a similar moratorium when confronted by a CWD outbreak in that state.

Mike Monson, president of the Wisconsin Commercial Deer & Elk Association, rejected the plan.  He requested that state officials to "slow down and consider the consequences of a moratorium."  Monson added that the idea of a moratorium "is not only premature, but shows, in my opinion, that some people in the DNR are out to get us."

Instead of a moratorium, the state Department of Ag. established a committee to develop a CWD action plan.  All the committee members, mentions Stauber, were part of or sympathetic to the game farm business.  "No public health or consumer representatives were on the committee," he says.

CWD comes from the family of fatal brain maladies known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE).  Mad Cow Disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) is the variant that strikes cattle.  In sheep, it's called scrappie.  In humans, the disease is known as CJD, or Creutzfeltd-Jakob Disease.  In all cases, a prion - a mysterious protein about which little is known - apparently drives the disease's impact.

In its early stages, CWD is invisible.  This means that animals that appear healthy may still carry the deadly disease.  It can take months or years before tremors, stumbling, excessive urination and thirst, and poor physical condition develop.  Currently, there are no reliable live tests for CWD, only brain examinations following death can verify its presence.

CWD is thought to spread through simple contact between animals.  The fencing surrounding game farms is usually inadequate to prevent such contact.  In South Dakota, Nebraska, and Saskatchewan, CWD has been found in wild animals living near game farms.

Stauber says the animals at Wisconisn's game farms should be immediately quarantined and secured behind tall, triple fences to prevent contact with wild animals.  Despite the recent discovery of the disease in Wisconsin, Stauber insists that "it must be assumed that the disease is at least as widespread in Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois."  And he urges officials in those states to immediately investigate the presence of CWD in their deer herds.

Successful containment of the disease may require radical steps.  In Nebraska, state officials are pondering the killing of half of the state's northeastern deer herd.  The thinning would presumably help reduce contact between animals.

There's talk in Wisconsin about prohibiting deer feeding, a popular practice that draws many deer together in close proximity at feeding sites.  If CWD is to be controlled, argues Rep. Jonsrud, it is "essential" for the DNR to have the power to ban feeding.

So is it still safe to eat Wisconsin venison?  Experts advise against consuming any of  the tissue in which the CWD prions concentrate.  That includes the brain, spine, lymph nodes, spleen, eyes, and tonsils of a deer.  Scientists still don't know whether or not eating infected deer will cause people to develop the fatal brain disorder.

This uncertainty is one reason why the World Health Organization says no animals with any TSE disease should be eaten by humans, pets, livestock or other animals.  In Britain and Europe, observes Stauber, Mad Cow disease is killing a growing number of people more than a decade after they unwittingly consumed contaminated beef.

"Unless a deer or elk is carefully examined by a trained specialist after death, it is impossible to identify which deer or elk are infected," Stauber says.  Children in particular, he adds, "should avoid deer and elk products until the extent of the risk is better understood."  And Stauber is not fond of venison sausage, either, as it may use meat from multiple animals as well as bone and other body parts containing infectious prions.

At the April 8 Conservation Congress in each state county, DNR officials told concerned citizens that they will focus considerable resources on the CWD outbreak.  What remains to be seen is if this response is already too late.