Joe Rogan Experience #1154 - Doug Duren & Bryan Richards

Joe Rogan 0:02 Five, four, three, two, one. Yee-haw, and we're live. My good friend, Doug Duren. Hello, Douglas.

Doug Duren 0:10 Hello, Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan 0:11 Good to see you as always.

Doug Duren 0:12 Oh, man, it is good to be here.

Joe Rogan 0:13 And, uh, Brian Richards, your friend, a wildlife biologist, and, um... Well, we're gonna talk about a bunch of things. But one of the things that I wanted to talk about is this scary disease that, uh... Well, when Ted Nugent was on the podcast, uh, he downplayed the, uh, consequences and effects of something called CWD, or chronic wasting disease, which has made it onto your farm. And you live in Wisconsin, and you have this beautiful place that we visited when we did the Meat Eater television show. And, um, this is a new thing, that this chronic wasting disease was just... It just, it decimates the deer's health and, and kills them. And the suspicion is that some of this, at least, comes from these high-fence operations where people grow deer, um, and treat them, like... Instead of, like, a wild animal, they treat them like a domesticated animal and have them all feeding off of the same pile of food and they share this disease. Is this all correct and accurate, Brian?

Bryan Richards 1:16 Boy, you just started on about an hour's worth of conversation.

Joe Rogan 1:19 (laughs)

Doug Duren 1:19 (laughs)

Bryan Richards 1:21 Um, so yeah, just a little bit. I'm a, I'm a wildlife biologist with the National Wildlife Health Center, US Geological Survey up in Madison, Wisconsin. And so, uh, one of the things that I spend a lot of time on is chronic wasting disease. I wouldn't say that makes me necessarily an expert, but I've gotten to know a lot of people that I would call experts over the years, so I've gained a little bit of knowledge. So, I don't even... Where... Your, your statement there, we could start a number of different places.

Joe Rogan 1:47 Yeah. This disease, um, it essentially d- just... Well, just describe what it does to these animals and why it's such a major concern. It hasn't jumped to humans yet.

Bryan Richards 1:59 That we're aware of.

Joe Rogan 2:00 That we're aware of.

Bryan Richards 2:01 Correct.

Joe Rogan 2:01 But it is a possibility, a very real possibility.

Bryan Richards 2:04 We can't rule it out at this point in time. Science is unable to rule it out. So, okay, that's a great place to start. Why would we care about this thing called chronic wasting disease? And I, I would argue, and, and some other scientists have argued, there's two major reasons. Number one is the impacts of this disease on members of the deer family themselves, and the other is that we cannot rule out the possibility that CWD could become a human health issue at some point down the road. Okay? So you kind of nailed those two. With regard to deer or members of the deer family, white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, moose, and most recently it was picked up in, in reindeer in Norway, of all places, um, we, we could articulate some reasons, some rationale why w- you know, this disease might be thought of as being important. The first we look at is, would be geographic spread. So, you know, CWD 20 years ago was thought to be this really novel thing in a very restricted geographic range in southeastern Wyoming, adjacent northeastern Colorado, and maybe a little spillover into Nebraska. Uh, wildlife biologists, wildlife disease specialists looked at this disease. It was interesting. Uh, we didn't know much about it at that point in time, but it seemed to be very isolated there.

Joe Rogan 3:21 What does it do to the deer?

Bryan Richards 3:22 It kills deer, right?

Joe Rogan 3:24 Right, but how does it kill them?

Bryan Richards 3:25 All right, so this is a member of a family of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, or TSEs. So big long words. Transmissible means it can go from animal A to animal B. Spongiform means looks like a sponge, and encephalopathy means disease of the brain. So you put it together, and so this disease results in holes in the brain resulting in progressive neurological degeneration followed by death. Okay? It's a, it's a death sentence for deer.

Joe Rogan 3:57 And there's no cure for it? It's not like you can capture the deer and give them some sort of medication?

Bryan Richards 4:02 No cure, um, for these diseases. The suite of diseases ca-... You know, there's, uh, there's, uh, members of this TSE group of diseases in humans. Most familiar is, is one called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Joe Rogan 4:15 Mm-hmm. Right. So it's very similar to mad cow disease.

Bryan Richards 4:18 They're in the same family. So that's one that's in-

Joe Rogan 4:20 So it comes from prions?

Bryan Richards 4:21 Well, I'd say prions. You could-

Joe Rogan 4:23 Something... Prions? Sorry.

Bryan Richards 4:23 ... say prions.

Joe Rogan 4:23 I don't know how to say it. I'll just read it.

Bryan Richards 4:24 Oh, no worries.

Doug Duren 4:25 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 4:25 (laughs)

Bryan Richards 4:26 Um, it's interesting. You know, there's a... Uh, it goes back and forth on whether it's preon or prion. Stan Prosener, who received the Nobel Laureate for his work on these diseases, coined the term preon.

Joe Rogan 4:38 Mm-hmm.

Bryan Richards 4:39 And in his first publication describing these diseases, he did a phonetic spelling, and it's preon. So other researchers, it's, uh, especially, you know, um, some from across the pond, um, say it's got to be prion. Now, the main reason that... You know, some of them I've talked to about that is that it irks Stan Prosener when he hears it called prion.

Joe Rogan 4:58 Oh, so we'll say preon.

Bryan Richards 5:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 5:00 So I'll say preon from now on.

Bryan Richards 5:01 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 5:01 Now, um, this disease, which people know as mad cow disease, um, obviously, uh, is transmissible to humans. And, um, that's one of the reasons why people are very scared that this could potentially jump from deer into humans. And correct me if I'm wrong, but it also is making its way into the actual plants that these animals eat.

Bryan Richards 5:24 You're correct on both accounts. So with BSE, mad cow disease, that was an interesting disease, where it resulted from, in essence, turning cows into cannibals. We were recycling-

Joe Rogan 5:36 Which also exists in New Guinea, right, with cannibals-

Bryan Richards 5:38 Exis-... With, with-

Joe Rogan 5:39 ... Jacob Creutzfeldt.

Bryan Richards 5:39 With, with kuru-

Joe Rogan 5:40 Right.

Bryan Richards 5:40 ... which is a human, uh, disease, uh, TSE, likely started when, um, one individual developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. That individual died. And as is the practice, was the practice in the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea, uh, they practiced ritualized cannibalism to honor the dead and to help release the spirits from, you know, deceased family members. So they would feed upon the c- uh, upon the corpse and pour, you know, the bodies of their deceased. So when one individual died of probably some variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, then the causative agent, the prion protein, which is concentrated in the central nervous system and lymphatic systems of, you know, of diseased patients, this was fed back to other members of the family and the extended family.And so when they got sick and died-

Doug Duren 6:32 Hmm.

Bryan Richards 6:32 ... fed it again. So we saw that with kuru, um, in, uh, in the 19-, I believe it was in 1960 or around there, um, it was realized that this cannibalistic behavior was likely the result, you know, or was likely the cause of disease transmission. Cannibalism was outlawed. And at that point in time, you broke completely the d- disease transmission cycle, so no more new cases of kuru, but they had lingering cases with an extended incubation period up to 40 years later before kuru finally burned out of that population.

Doug Duren 7:08 Huh.

Bryan Richards 7:09 Whoa. So now with, with BSE, or mad cow disease, we were doing exactly, in essence, the same thing. Not exactly the same thing, but in essence. So in an effort to maximize production and reduce the amount of waste, when they butchered cattle we would take all the offal, O-F-F-A-L, you know, the hide, the bones, the, the parts that are inedible, and we would render them, cook them at high temperature and typically, you know, high pressure as well, and it turns into a slurry, a high protein slurry. You skim the fat off the top of that and then dehydrate the rest of it, and you have, you know, kind of a meat and bone meal, a high protein supplement. Realizing that cattle grow faster and produce better when they're, when on a high, higher protein diet, it seemed reasonable to use waste material from cows to feed back to cows.

Doug Duren 8:02 Oof.

Bryan Richards 8:02 So at some point turning, turning-

Doug Duren 8:05 (laughs) It doesn't get better, Joe.

Bryan Richards 8:05 Turning cows into cannibals.

Doug Duren 8:07 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 8:07 So at some point in time a cow developed a TSE, a prion disease. Whether it came from scrapie, the TSE of sheep, or arose on its own is unknown, but that cow died. It was rendered into meat and bone meal, and this high protein feed was then fed out to hundreds to thousands.

Doug Duren 8:27 And correct me if I'm wrong, but these prions, they, they could survive up to more than a thousand degree, uh, temperature?

Bryan Richards 8:34 Yeah, surviving is kind of a, a, a strange term, Joe, in that they're not alive-

Doug Duren 8:38 Right.

Bryan Richards 8:38 ... to start with. It's a protein. Uh, they can persist. Um-

Doug Duren 8:42 Okay.

Bryan Richards 8:42 ... they cannot be inactivated. So yeah, it's, you, you got to cook pretty hot.

Doug Duren 8:45 So it's not necessarily, these prions are not necessarily a living thing like a disease or a virus or a bacteria?

Bryan Richards 8:52 Well, they're a disease-causing agent.

Doug Duren 8:54 Ah.

Bryan Richards 8:54 But they are incredibly unique. So they're an etiologic agent, like a virus-

Doug Duren 8:59 Mm-hmm.

Bryan Richards 8:59 ... a bacteria or, you know, a parasite could be causing disease. But all these other things have genetic material. They're alive, which allows them to change rapidly to evolve over time. So the, the whole concept that you have a protein, a protein that all mammals produce in a normal form can be converted after production into a disease-associated form that has these radically different characteristics. One that you mentioned was, you know, resistance to heat, heat treatment. A normal prion protein, and we have billions of them circulating in our bodies right now, um, have a specific purpose, a cellular purpose. We don't know exactly what it is, but it's likely involved in some sort of intracellular communication. It's a string of around 250 amino acids, uh, so a relatively short protein. It does whatever it does and then the body recycles, breaks that chain of amino acids down into its component parts and recycles it. Turns out that normal cellular prion protein likely has a half-life of maybe four to six hours, okay? So you're producing them relatively constantly. Then there's the disease-associated form.

Doug Duren 10:12 Huh.

Bryan Richards 10:12 And all disease-associated prions start as the normal cellular prion. So they're converted from one three-dimensional form to a different form, okay? And this different form has these radically different characteristics. One is heat resistance. Another is UV light resistance. Um, I mentioned that the normal cellular prion protein has a half-life of maybe four to six hours. The disease-associated ones can persist in the environment for years and potentially up to decades, okay?

Doug Duren 10:43 And when you say persist in the environment, you mean in, like on the ground, on leaves, on, like how, how would they persist?

Bryan Richards 10:50 Yeah, all of those things, Joe.

Doug Duren 10:53 Oof.

Bryan Richards 10:53 So if a deer, ooh, sheds infectious agent, this prion protein, and so, you know, from the time a deer is infected it's probably around two years before it develops clinical signs of disease, goes downhill, loses its fear of humans, dramatic weight loss, um, all of those things. That incubation period, you know, it's probably shedding infectious agent for the vast majority of that time period. So it looks healthy, but it's able, of transmitting disease. We call that, you know, a Typhoid Mary syndrome.

Doug Duren 11:27 The two deer that we, uh, that were positive on our farm, two bucks, two and a half year old bucks, were, we had them tested. As you know, we're, for the last several years we've been getting, uh... Initially we got our, uh, only bucks tested and then the last three or four years we've gotten all the deer tested. They were, uh, two and a half year old bucks, perfectly, looked perfectly healthy. And these are the first ones that you've tested for, that, that tested positive? That tested positive, and we'd tested in excess of 35 deer over the last, well, more than that-

Bryan Richards 11:58 Now-

Doug Duren 11:58 ... probably more like 50. During the incubation period would they still test positive?

Bryan Richards 12:02 At some point they will.

Doug Duren 12:03 At some point?

Bryan Richards 12:04 Yeah.

Doug Duren 12:04 So they could be spreading infectious agents without testing positive?

Bryan Richards 12:07 Yes. Yes.

Doug Duren 12:08 Oh, fuck.

Bryan Richards 12:08 Absolutely.

Doug Duren 12:09 (laughs)

Bryan Richards 12:09 So it's, it's, uh, it's probably between three and six months out when we can test an animal test positive. But it's likely shedding infectious agent, at least at lower quantities, prior to that point in time. And so then, so it's shedding infectious agent, it's capable of transmitting disease, okay, long before it looks clinically ill. And so that's one of the real challenges with this disease from a management standpoint-They look perfectly healthy, they act perfectly healthy, but they're starting to have that progressive neurological degeneration that we can only see very near the end of disease.

Joe Rogan 12:48 So, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, but this seems like we could pot- potentially be facing a ticking time bomb of many, many, many deer that are wandering around out there right now that look totally normal, that are spreading this stuff all over the place and they're, they're acting normally, they look perfectly healthy, and then, obviously, with this multi-year incubation period, this could just cascade.

Bryan Richards 13:11 And I think we've seen evidence of that now. Um, it started out, you know, we talked about being isolated disease. It was picked up in Wisconsin at the end of 2001. Um, as of today, CWD has been now pen- picked up in 25 states in captive and/or free-ranging populations in white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, or moose, two Canadian provinces. Uh, in addition, it was picked up in South Korea (clears throat) , and that was real interesting. It was in captive elk, and those elk still had Canadian ear tags in them, so we pretty much know-

Joe Rogan 13:46 Mm-hmm.

Bryan Richards 13:46 ... how CWD... You know, those, those elk didn't swim across the Pacific pond. Most recently, it was picked up, uh, two years ago in free-ranging reindeer in Norway, and subsequent to that, it was picked up in a small handful, like three or four moose and a red deer in Norway and a single moose in Finland. There's real concern (clears throat) over in Norway, um, with reindeer, okay? So reindeer are very gregarious. You know, white-tailed deer-

Doug Duren 14:18 Caribou, same.

Bryan Richards 14:19 You know, caribou, reindeer, so not unusual to see them in herds of hundreds of animals, so very, very different than what we see with white-tailed deer, mule deer, elk, or moose. We don't see those huge herds. Well, with elk you can in the wintertime. But anyway, it's thought that this gregarious behavior might really facilitate transmission in reindeer, right?

Joe Rogan 14:41 Hm.

Bryan Richards 14:42 So when it was picked up in reindeer, Norway said, "You know, we- maybe we should do something." It's an interesting story in that, um, you know, Norway's got experience with scrapie in sheep.

Joe Rogan 14:54 Mm-hmm.

Bryan Richards 14:54 Uh, and so they have a long history of, uh-

Joe Rogan 14:56 What is scrapie?

Bryan Richards 14:57 Scrapie is the same as... Well, it's the same family of diseases in sheep. It's actually the first one that was described, scrapie, we've known about since the early 1700s. Uh, disease in domestic sheep, and it's called scrapie because of the behavior these animals, once they enter the clinical phase of disease, display, and they, they seem like they itch bad. And so they'll go up to fence posts and other objects and they will literally rub their hide off of their body, so that's the name scrapie.

Joe Rogan 15:26 Whoa.

Bryan Richards 15:26 And it's the same progressive neurological disorder followed by death. Now, you think about it, so as this disease creates vacuoles in the brain, it's killing off neurons. And so without those neurons firing, you fall into that progressive degeneration, and yet, at some point, your body can no longer survive. And that's what's really spooky about how this thing kills. So anyway, go back to Norway. When they detected CWD-

Joe Rogan 15:53 Brian, try to keep this a little bit closer to your sorry.

Bryan Richards 15:54 Oh, right.

Joe Rogan 15:54 You're very soft-spoken.

Bryan Richards 15:56 Oh, no worries. I'll talk... I can hear myself plenty well. How about that one?

Joe Rogan 15:58 Yeah, yeah, I know. It's just the problem is the recording.

Bryan Richards 16:00 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 16:00 Sorry.

Bryan Richards 16:00 Okay. No worries. So when they picked up CWD in reindeer in Norway, um, the researchers over there had witnessed what we... Uh, our lack of success on this side of the pond over the course of the last 20 years. They took it very, very seriously. Um, so they took kind of some harsh medicine. Uh, they announced their plans, that they were going to eliminate a herd unit. They were gonna kill every reindeer in an entire herd unit-

Joe Rogan 16:28 Wow.

Bryan Richards 16:28 ... in Norway. The idea is to eliminate the host population. It's called stamping out, and it works in a pen. This is the first time it'd been done realistically in a free-ranging population. Whole idea is we don't have effective tools for management of this disease. They were very fearful of what would happen if this spread throughout that reindeer population and throughout other reindeer herds.

Doug Duren 16:52 And like Alaska, they have multiple herds. Like last year, I hunted caribou with, with Steve up in the, uh, uh-

Bryan Richards 16:59 Perch.

Doug Duren 16:59 ... 40 Mile River area, and, but there were, you know... And, and so they're very, uh, well, localized is, is probably not... But at least they have a range that they move through. So-

Bryan Richards 17:08 Yep.

Doug Duren 17:08 And in, in, uh, Norway, they have two or three different herds.

Bryan Richards 17:12 Many more than that.

Doug Duren 17:13 So-

Bryan Richards 17:13 So I don't know exactly how many herd units they have.

Doug Duren 17:14 But the point was, is that you could isolate one of the herds.

Bryan Richards 17:17 Yep. So the idea is, before this gets to be any worse, before it gets any farther, let's take it out. So they had a hunting season. They allowed, uh, hunters to take as many as they could, which was a little over 1,000 reindeer, and then they came in with government agents, sharpshooters.

Joe Rogan 17:32 But isn't there a concern that the hunters could eat something with CWD and then catch it?

Bryan Richards 17:38 Well, that's always a concern. But w- we can talk about human health.

Joe Rogan 17:41 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 17:42 Let me finish this one up though.

Doug Duren 17:43 Okay, please do.

Bryan Richards 17:43 With, with Norway, in that, see, they took... literally took the bull by the horns. They decided to do what was very unpopular, what we have not been able to do in North America. They... And so after the hunting season, government agent sharpshooters took an additional 1400 reindeer. So they killed every reindeer in this herd unit, and they're gonna keep it fallow, allow no reindeer in there for a minimum of five years. So this has every bit of promise of being the first large-scale success with dealing with this disease in a free-ranging herd. Pretty different than what we've been able to accomplish over here.

Doug Duren 18:18 Five years, is that, uh... I mean, with it, with it being in the soil and dirt and, from what I was reading, wood and everything else, is that, um... So at some point, there becomes a- the, the prions, um, diminish in population or they die out or whatever the pr- proper word. I mean, they're not living, so they don't die, but-

Bryan Richards 18:40 Five years-

Doug Duren 18:40 They don't become viable anymore?

Bryan Richards 18:41 Yeah, five years is probably a pretty good... It's a guesstimate, okay? As la- uh, with regard to how long these prions remain viable in the, in the environment and in the substrate. So it's a, it's a good first guess, and what-What they'll do, then, is slowly allow reindeer to repopulate, and as they do, they'll be harvested periodically and every one of those will be tested. So I mean, it'll be a- a- a long-term experiment into, you know, successful management and it will also learn quite a bit about whether... how far along the environment was contaminated. So another thing-

Joe Rogan 19:15 Hm.

Bryan Richards 19:15 ... they caught this disease very early. So after killing off, you know, 2,400 reindeer, I think they had around 20 positives. So very low prevalence, suggesting the disease was very, very new in this system. So if you're gonna be successful with a disease where animals are shedding infectious agent out into the environment, it persists for years to decades, do it early. You know, if you're gonna get on it, get... detect it early, get on it fast, get on it hard.

Joe Rogan 19:41 Why the decision to let human beings consume them?

Bryan Richards 19:44 Well, at this point in time, the- we really don't have any evidence that s- that humans can get CWD.

Joe Rogan 19:50 Could that potentially, though, be an incubation period issue, just like it is with deer, maybe extended with humans? 'Cause you were talking about w- how do you... what's the cor- correct pronunciation? I was pronouncing it wrong.

Bryan Richards 20:00 Kuru.

Joe Rogan 20:00 No, no, no. What-

Bryan Richards 20:01 Or-

Joe Rogan 20:01 Yuk- Yukub Krutchefell?

Bryan Richards 20:03 Oh, Creutz- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Joe Rogan 20:04 Creutz- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Bryan Richards 20:06 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 20:06 So the- that has a long incubation period in human beings, correct?

Bryan Richards 20:11 Likely.

Joe Rogan 20:11 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 20:12 Yeah, yeah.

Joe Rogan 20:12 And mad cow, same thing? Could-

Bryan Richards 20:14 Extended incubation period.

Joe Rogan 20:15 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 20:15 Kuru could... you know, some of the cases, it looks like we're up maybe even to 40, maybe even 50-year incubation period-

Joe Rogan 20:21 That is crazy.

Bryan Richards 20:22 ... as individuals.

Joe Rogan 20:22 Go ahead.

Doug Duren 20:22 I wanna talk about kuru for a minute 'cause every time I talk to this guy, I mean, I've learned a lot from him about all kinds of things and diseases. But, uh, yesterday we were talking about kuru and, and one of the things that was interesting to me about it is that these tribes, the women and children contracted it-

Bryan Richards 20:41 Yeah, it's-

Doug Duren 20:42 ... first.

Bryan Richards 20:42 Isn't that interesting? So-

Doug Duren 20:44 And, and the reason why was the men ate the meat and the women and children ate the-

Bryan Richards 20:50 Internal organs.

Doug Duren 20:50 ... internal organs and brains.

Bryan Richards 20:52 Yeah, so as-

Doug Duren 20:53 Where it's concentrated.

Bryan Richards 20:54 ... as kuru took off, you know, it was one of the features as the researchers in the- you know, in the '50s and- you know, 1950s were looking at the population, um, very few adult males had kuru and it was more focused in the females and, and the children. And so it came back to that ritualistic, you know, um, um, cannibalism, and you hit it ex- right on the head. Um, the women and children got the internal organs, including the brain that have highest concentration of the- of the prion protein. The men, if they consumed anything, consumed the- the finer cuts of meat which have a lower concentration but not nil. So I thought-

Doug Duren 21:36 You know, that's just one of those social things that just-

Joe Rogan 21:38 Yeah.

Doug Duren 21:38 ... kinda stuck with me, you know?

Bryan Richards 21:40 Bizarre. It is kinda... it's pretty, pretty interesting story.

Joe Rogan 21:43 So w- a bunch of people reached out and some, some were very angry after Ted Nugent was on the podcast and, uh, I don't know how CWD got brought up. I don't, I don't know what the, the, the context was, I don't remember, but I remember him saying that winter kills more animals than CWD does. And, uh, many people were very angry that this was a gross simplification of what could be a ticking time bomb.

Bryan Richards 22:06 I, I guess I would... yeah, I'd, I'd have to agree with that. Um, there's another disease out there called epizootic hemorrhagic disease, EHD.

Joe Rogan 22:15 Hm.

Bryan Richards 22:15 And-

Joe Rogan 22:16 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 22:16 ... periodically you'll have significant outbreaks of this disease and in, in northern latitudes where, you know, the disease has not been present as often, you can see dramatic mortality, 80%, 90% of a herd can be killed in a single, you know, event, okay? But a very, you know, a distinction between these diseases, you know, EHD is spread by midges, little black no-see-ums, okay?

Joe Rogan 22:45 Mm-hmm, a bug.

Bryan Richards 22:46 It's a bug.

Joe Rogan 22:46 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 22:46 It actually transmits, transmits the disease. The virus from animal A to animal B or from the environment to animal A, either one. So while you have these pretty dramatic die-offs, as soon as the weather changes, after the first frost, the first hard frost kills off the midges and within about two weeks the disease cycle is broken completely. So it has significant impacts on a localized level periodically but the disease cycle, there's a definite end to the disease cycle and then it-

Doug Duren 23:17 And then it's no longer present-

Bryan Richards 23:19 Well, the-

Doug Duren 23:19 ... for that period of time or for a period of time anyway, right?

Bryan Richards 23:22 Yeah, the virus may persist in the environment but once the transmission cycle is broken, the mor- mortalities stop.

Joe Rogan 23:28 And isn't there some, uh, genetically engineered food plots that they're putting together now and diff- different types of seed that, uh, inhibits midge growth and inhibits EHD?

Bryan Richards 23:40 I'm not aware of that but I wouldn't doubt it.

Joe Rogan 23:42 And I think there's also-

Bryan Richards 23:42 I wouldn't doubt it.

Joe Rogan 23:42 ... some stuff they're doing that, uh, bolsters the animals' immune system. They're, they're supplementing some of the, the food with, uh, I don't know what they're using but it bolsters the animals' immune system, makes them less susceptible to it.

Bryan Richards 23:55 And populations that have been hispo- ex- or exposed to EHD and, you know, over time definitely develop a herd immunity to it, okay?

Joe Rogan 24:05 And is EHD transferrable to humans?

Bryan Richards 24:07 Um, no. We don't... not that we've ever seen. There's no evidence that it is. This is a disease of deer and i- you know, it's... it also can get into livestock as well.

Joe Rogan 24:15 So even if people get bitten by these midges, there's still no concern that we could potentially get EHD?

Bryan Richards 24:21 Not EHD, no.

Joe Rogan 24:22 No.

Bryan Richards 24:22 So contrast that, this disease EHD with a very definite end to the transmission cycle. First frost kills off the midges. With CWD, there's no known ecological factor which signals the end of the transmission cycle so that's why we see prevalence, or the proportion of animals that are positive in individual, you know, locations and individual herds, it just keeps going up, up, up. In captive, um, facilities, uh, the, the Hall Farm in Wisconsin where CWD was first detected in 2002, the, the place was depopulated in 2006, prevalence was nearly 80%, so four out of five deer in that captive cervid facility had it.

Joe Rogan 25:04 Wow.

Bryan Richards 25:05 More recently we had, uh, a farm, a deer farm in Iowa-... where, you know, a disease had gone undetected for some period of time and when the herd was depopulated, again, about 80% prevalence, but this was a big herd. So there were over 200 positives in this single high-fenced enclosure. And so winter's not gonna change that. It grows, so no stop. There's no known feature which stops the transmission cycle. And so when you say that something like EHD kills a lot of deer, yes, it does, but the disease transmission cycle stops. With CWD, we don't know anything that stops it.

Doug Duren 25:45 It's- EHD is more like the flu.

Joe Rogan 25:50 Have you had it on your- your farm?

Doug Duren 25:52 EHD, never. No. No. Well, that... Let me rephrase that. I, I... Not that I'm aware of. Um, and, uh, so when I learned about EHD and- and- and, you know, comparative, uh, diseases, you know, chronic wasting disease is like none other. It- it, uh, uh... As it develops within the herd, as it develops within the animal, it just continues to grow. So it'll start out as a very small problem. Um, there are some maps of how it, uh, developed, uh, or how it spread in the, in the Southwest Wisconsin and we're on the front edge of it now. Um, and it's all... Uh, uh, uh, correct me if I'm wrong, Brian, but it's like, it's almost like the way it develops within the deer, taking that period of time before it becomes, uh, clinical and the deer dies, it's almost as if that's reflective of how it moves through the landscape. It moves very slowly, but once it's there, it's there.

Joe Rogan 26:49 Now, I have read about hunters eating meat from some sort of diseased deer and getting sick and dying. What would that be?

Bryan Richards 27:00 Misreporting?

Joe Rogan 27:02 Would it be? (laughs)

Bryan Richards 27:02 (laughs) Possibly. I mean, I- I shouldn't, I shouldn't say that. I mean, I don't know the... There, there have been instances where, um, people that hunted deer later died of a prion disease, likely developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, okay? And so was it the deer that gave it to them? Well, there's no epidemiological evidence that this occurs at this point in time. And we've, we've hinted about some of the- the human health issues, so there's a few things we can look at. In areas where CWD is known to exist, do we see higher mortality rates from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the dis- uh, prion disease of humans than we do elsewhere? The answer is no. Okay? So from an epidemiological standpoint, there's no evidence that CWD has crossed over that species barrier into humans. Now, we can take a look at a number of, of science experiments that have been conducted and at least in, in some of these studies in experimental models, we have evidence that the CWD prion protein can cause human normal prions to convert to a disease-associated form. Okay? But now, these are models, okay? They're not... It's not quite the same as pumping CWD into the brain of a, of a human patient and seeing what's- what developed. Okay? So the science suggests that there is a small, non-zero chance that CWD could become a human health issue. There's also some of the more recent science that's been conducted suggests that this barrier, we call it the species barrier, and it, and it really is a very robust barrier, one would think, that keeps CWD from crossing into human hosts. That barrier may not be as tough as we think it is and that barrier may be changing over time.

Doug Duren 29:00 And is that because one of the things we've talked about before is that, that they've discovered different strains of CWD?

Bryan Richards 29:06 Yeah, it sure is, Doug.

Joe Rogan 29:08 Oh, Jesus. (laughs)

Bryan Richards 29:09 So-

Doug Duren 29:09 (laughs)

Bryan Richards 29:10 Yeah, so well-

Doug Duren 29:11 Like I said, man, it gets worse. (laughs)

Joe Rogan 29:13 Uh- (laughs)

Bryan Richards 29:13 It's, it's fascinating. It's fascinating stuff.

Doug Duren 29:16 But you gotta get to that point.

Joe Rogan 29:17 It's-

Doug Duren 29:17 That's fascinating.

Joe Rogan 29:18 It's definitely fascinating, but it's scaring the shit out of me already.

Doug Duren 29:21 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 29:21 So, yeah, the idea of strains is really interesting. With scrapie, I mentioned that disease in sheep, we recognize some 30 different strains. And it's still all that same identical strand of amino acids and its shape, that tertiary form must be slightly different, and it manifests slightly differently in sheep. So, um, now with CWD, there's at least two, uh, recognized strains that have been published in, you know, peer-reviewed literature. There's probably more strains out there. In fact, it's, it's kind of interesting. There was a, there was a paper done, uh, couple years ago, uh, which looked at the actual, the architecture of this disease-associated prion protein and there's a, there's a portion of it that's referred to as a loop structure. And it's just kind of, you know, if you take a rubber band and, or a piece of yarn or something and ball it up into a three-dimensional shape, there's a little loop hanging off the side of this disease-associated prion protein. And in deer, in CWD, that loop is very, very rigid. Okay? It's very, um, inflexible, shall we say. In humans, it is more of a flexible loop as opposed to the rigid loop and it's thought that this difference in that architecture is par- is partially, you know, controls that species barrier. Okay? So I was telling Doug that-

Doug Duren 30:46 I read the paper yesterday on the plane about this.

Bryan Richards 30:48 ... it's, it's pretty, it's pretty neat stuff. Okay?

Joe Rogan 30:51 Yeah, it was really... Actually, it was-

Bryan Richards 30:52 All right.

Joe Rogan 30:52 ... really interesting.

Bryan Richards 30:53 So, so now it turns out mice, experimental l- laboratory mice, their prion protein has the same structure as the human prion does. Okay? So you cannot give CWD to a normal laboratory mouse. They just don't get it. And it's likely this difference, some of this difference in their prion structure, this one cannot convert that one to a different form. So some researchers in, uh, Alberta-... um, identified a strain of CWD which came from wild deer. So it's not something they engineered in the laboratory. They have a strain from wild deer that does give mice CWD.

Joe Rogan 31:34 Oh, fuck.

Bryan Richards 31:34 So most of the strains out there, mice can't get. But they discovered one that mice do get. So researchers from a few years ago, and, and lately I've seen it in the, in the popular media, that, hey, this difference in this loop structure is gonna keep people from getting CWD. Well, the, all the, the, all the assumptions that people can't get CWD are based that, on this idea that CWD is CWD and it will always be exactly the same thing. But our experience with scrapie strongly suggests that even though there's no, um, there's no DNA in these things, that they do change over time. They morph over time into slightly different, uh, disease characteristics and etiologic agents.

Joe Rogan 32:19 Now in the hunting community, is there skepticism about this? Is Ted Nugent's ideas, are these unique or is this a, a common thought that... Or is it a convenient thought for them because they don't want it to be real?

Bryan Richards 32:34 It's, it's a challenge. Um-

Joe Rogan 32:37 Of education?

Bryan Richards 32:38 Yeah. Um, we as-

Doug Duren 32:39 Obviously, just in the whatever period of time that we talked here, it's, you know, it's really complicated and it, it, it-

Joe Rogan 32:45 Right.

Doug Duren 32:46 And, and to get to the ... Y- you almost wanna stick your head in the sand and just-

Joe Rogan 32:50 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 32:50 ... forget about it. And, you know, besides the sort of things that, you know, your friend that we were talking about before, like I was doing on the farm, of, you know, managing deer in a particular way for a particular kind of deer, um, which might be contrary to the, to the spread of the disease. Well, geez, nobody wants to hear that I can't do what I want to-

Joe Rogan 33:09 Yeah.

Doug Duren 33:09 ... do management-wise.

Joe Rogan 33:09 And, and when we're, we're talking about management-wise and we're talking about my friend John Dudley's, uh, farm in, uh, Iowa, is that he only shoots the big mature males. And he lets all the other deer grow to a very large size so he has a really healthy population of big deer on his farm.

Doug Duren 33:25 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 33:26 Now what are you doing in your place? I understand you're just on a mass cull.

Doug Duren 33:31 Well, I feel like I'm on the front edge of ... Well, I don't feel like it, I am on the front edge of the spread of this disease. And there's some b-

Joe Rogan 33:40 In Wisconsin?

Doug Duren 33:40 In Wisconsin, in Southwest Wisconsin. So 15 years ago when, uh, or 16 years ago, when CWD was discovered, there were a lot of changes in, in, uh, hunting structure. And there was an effort, uh, by the Department of Natural Resources to, uh, eradicate the disease, um, in, in the, the core area south of the Wisconsin River, about 70 miles from us. Um, in 15 years, the disease has moved 70 miles north. Um, that effort that the DNR started was, um, became political, uh, and, you know, and, and quite honestly, that many years ago, um, I would've likely been a little skeptic. Well, I know I would've been skeptical. You want me to do what? They wanted to kill all the deer in a particular area. You know, that many years ago, had they come to my farm and said, "We're gonna kill all the deer here and all the ne- you know, the, the neighboring deer," I would've had some real hard questions. I have no idea how I would've reacted to it. I continued to do like buck management and, you know, you were there when we were still doing that. Um, and, uh, and there's ... We can talk about, you know, how, how bucks contribute to the spread of the disease and, and that sort of thing.

Joe Rogan 34:56 Uniquely versus doe?

Doug Duren 34:58 Um ...

Bryan Richards 35:01 We see different prevalence or curves depending on the demographic faction of deer. Adult males, the ones with the big antlers, um, with deers on the wall over there, tend to have higher prevalence, sometimes maybe two, three, four times as high as other segments of the population. So highest prevalence in adult males, followed by adult females, and then by juvenile animals. So, um, so it's likely behavioral reasons why we see that in adult males. So adult male deer, uh, during the rut or breeding season, they greatly expand their home range. They contact multiple, you know, uh, female or family groups of females. Earlier in the fall, especially with the white-tailed deer, adult males tend to gather in these bachelor groups so there's a lot of social contact, um, grooming, things like that. So because of their behavior, they contact more animals at different times of the year. And this number of contacts, it's believed, is likely responsible for them, uh, becoming infected at a higher rate than other members out in the herd. So now if you are an adult male, then you're in the, in this group. You also have a higher likelihood of being able to transmit disease to other animals because you're out there during breeding season, right?

Joe Rogan 36:23 Mm-hmm. Is there any evidence that we- that any of these deer have transferred this to livestock or that it's gone into, uh, agriculture, into food sources, corn and what have you, that could, could be consumed by people even that are vegetarians?

Bryan Richards 36:36 Mm-hmm. Okay. Interesting question. So with regard to transmission into cattle, it's basically the same situation as with humans. No evidence that it has. But in an experimental sense, we can push it over that species barrier. Okay? Now interesting you bring up plants, because we have shown, uh, research that we've done at the National Wildlife Health Center has shown that if you grow some plant types in a slurry, a concentrate of prion protein, that those prions can be uptaken through the roots and deposited into stems and leaves.

Joe Rogan 37:15 Oof.

Bryan Richards 37:16 Okay? And so that's one possible mechanism. A second is that ... So prions themselves, the disease associated prions tend to f- form very tight chemical bonds with various surfaces. And I showed him a paper on the way out here yesterday where they bind to just about anything. They bind to plants as well. So that deer that's out there w- CWD positive, shedding infectious agent out into the environment through its urine, through its saliva, through its feces. So if a deer urinates, if a deer with CWD urinates on plants-... the prions have a tendency to bind to those plants, form a chemical bond. It's not just dried on, it forms a chemical bond to the plant.

Joe Rogan 37:57 So they literally become part of the plant?

Bryan Richards 37:59 It's b- yeah, okay? So a deer could eat those plants and that could be one of the possible transmission mechanisms.

Joe Rogan 38:09 (exhales)

Bryan Richards 38:09 So that's the second one. The third one has, uh, you know, uh, is speculated about and some folks have looked at and, and it has potential impacts for, um, agricultural commodities. So when CWD was, you know, 20, 30 years ago was really, really rare, it probably couldn't happen. But now it's in 25 states, vast geographic areas. We have, um, just south of where he lives, in adult males, nearly 50% prevalence. So when you kill that big buck, take a coin out of your pocket, flip it in the air, and that's the odds that that deer has CWD.

Doug Duren 38:45 And when he says, "Just south," it's-

Bryan Richards 38:47 Just south.

Doug Duren 38:47 ... 15 miles.

Bryan Richards 38:48 Okay.

Joe Rogan 38:49 Geez.

Bryan Richards 38:49 So now let's go out west-

Joe Rogan 38:51 50% of them.

Bryan Richards 38:52 Or yes, or, you know, so let's go out-

Joe Rogan 38:54 20% prevalence-

Bryan Richards 38:55 To, uh-

Joe Rogan 38:55 ... overall in the county-

Bryan Richards 38:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 38:56 ... at this point.

Bryan Richards 38:57 (exhales) Let's go up into the, the big agricultural areas in Saskatchewan or out west, okay? So you got a mule deer herd out there with CWD, and let's say maybe 20% overall of that herd is CWD positive. You've been out in some of those big wheat fields and hayfields, how many mule deer are standing out there before sunset?

Joe Rogan 39:17 A shitload.

Bryan Richards 39:18 Yeah. Okay, so take that amount times 20%, or that amount, whatever percent have CWD, figure out how many times does the deer defecate or urinate on a daily basis, and that's a bunch. And now think about the possibility that when you harvest those agricultural foodstuffs and roll it up into big bales that you might have fecal material rolled up into those big bales.

Joe Rogan 39:44 Not just might, right? I mean, most likely.

Bryan Richards 39:47 Um, we'd need a graduate student that we could have, you know, pick apart large bales of hay to really prove that, um, but I mean, it's almost certainly.

Joe Rogan 39:56 Yeah.

Doug Duren 39:56 You know, and I-

Bryan Richards 39:56 So now we're, now we're putting those on semi-trailers-

Joe Rogan 39:59 Mm-hmm.

Bryan Richards 39:59 ... and moving them across-

Joe Rogan 40:00 All across the country.

Bryan Richards 40:01 ... borders.

Joe Rogan 40:01 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 40:02 And are those g- could, is there a possibility that these agricultural commodities then deer could come up to them and be infected by contact?

Doug Duren 40:12 Yeah, I think it's-

Bryan Richards 40:12 We don't know.

Doug Duren 40:13 ... important to say that, um, Brian's a scientist, these other folks studying it are scientists, and they don't th- you know, it's, it's evidence and it suggests, and they get attacked for that.

Joe Rogan 40:26 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 40:27 Um-

Joe Rogan 40:27 By people who don't want it to be true.

Doug Duren 40:29 Well, and, and, you know, that's how science is attacked anyway-

Joe Rogan 40:32 Yeah.

Doug Duren 40:32 ... right? Because it's hard to, uh, speaking in absolutes is a real hard thing to do.

Joe Rogan 40:37 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 40:37 You know? And so it's, y- you'll hear him say, "The evidence suggests."

Joe Rogan 40:41 Yes.

Doug Duren 40:42 "The information is this." And I, I just think that's a real important, um, distinction to draw here-

Joe Rogan 40:47 It's-

Doug Duren 40:47 ... when you're, you're having those kind of discussions. You know, there are people who want absolute proof.

Bryan Richards 40:51 Proof is hard in the biological world because there's so many factors out there, we can't control for them all. But there are certain tactics that have been used quite successfully, it goes all the way back to smoking, you know? When, uh, um, you know, um-

Doug Duren 41:06 Attacking science.

Bryan Richards 41:06 ... tobacco companies were attacking science.

Joe Rogan 41:09 Mm-hmm.

Bryan Richards 41:09 And the whole idea is to sow the seeds of doubt. There's a-

Joe Rogan 41:12 There's a-

Bryan Richards 41:12 We've seen that-

Joe Rogan 41:13 ... actually a documentary on it called-

Bryan Richards 41:14 Actually.

Joe Rogan 41:14 ... Merchants of Doubt.

Bryan Richards 41:16 We've seen that, we see the same thing going on with CWD.

Joe Rogan 41:19 Mm-hmm.

Bryan Richards 41:19 So you mentioned it earlier, "Hey, um, you know, CWD, it's not so bad. What about winter kill? What about EHD?" So instead of focusing on that saying, "Don't look here, look at this one. This one is worse. Why aren't you doing something about this one?" So it's a simple diversion. Another tactic which is, and I mean, there's s- there's a body-

Joe Rogan 41:41 But this is a-

Bryan Richards 41:41 ... of science around this.

Joe Rogan 41:41 ... non-scientific approach to this because these are unrelated issues. Like EHD does kill animals, winter kill most certainly-

Bryan Richards 41:47 Yep.

Joe Rogan 41:47 ... kills animals, but we're not talking about the same circumstances.

Bryan Richards 41:49 Right, we're trying to-

Joe Rogan 41:50 Right.

Bryan Richards 41:50 ... divert the conversation.

Joe Rogan 41:52 Right.

Bryan Richards 41:53 Another thing that's, uh, that's very easy to do is, you know, is cherry picking the literature that's ou- that's out there. We saw a real g- great example of this about a year ago where, um, there's a lot of letters to the editor being sent in to newspapers in areas where CWD is. And I think it's, it's an, uh, an attempt to change the conversation. So they were very careful to use citations from peer-reviewed literature and one of the ones they used was they found that in researchers in Wisconsin found that CWD was not having a significant effect on mortality rates when they studied the disease. So this is a true statement taken directly from peer-reviewed science. What they didn't identify was that th- that when they studied that disease was between 2003 and 2007. 10, 12, you know, 11 years ago. The next-

Doug Duren 42:49 Early on in the-

Bryan Richards 42:50 The next sentence in the paper was, "Our study can use as a baseline for comparison at a later point in time should disease change over time." So he mentioned that exponential growth curve and how early on, back in 2003 to 2007 this area disease prevalence was probably lower than 5%. Now it's shot up in that curve and it's probably in that, you know, 25, 30, 30 plus percentage range. So you're cherry picking literature to make your argument say even scientists say this is not having a big effect when they studied it. They're just not saying when they studied it.

Joe Rogan 43:28 Mm. So as a non-scientist...... what I'm looking at here is everyone's always terrified of the next pandemic disease. And this is one of the reasons why I felt it was so important to discuss this, because, you know, people would say, they look at it casually, "Good. Don't eat animals. Don't eat deer." This is, this is not that. This is something that has a potential to reach large scale agriculture. This is ... I mean, if you ... One of the things about your farm, and we, we talked about this when we were there, it's like these animals are farm animals almost, because they're, they're absolutely free-range and they're absolutely wild. When you talk about the deer on your place, you don't, you don't have them controlled in any way, but they're feeding off of your corn.

Doug Duren 44:07 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:07 They're eating all this stuff that people eat. They're eating ... I mean, that's what they eat. They ... That's one of the reasons why the deer populations are so enormous in farmlands is because it's a massive food supply.

Doug Duren 44:17 It's a perfect environment, yeah.

Joe Rogan 44:19 Yeah. And it's also one of the reasons why they're so delicious-

Doug Duren 44:21 Yeah, well-

Joe Rogan 44:21 ... they're so well-fed, and so ... (laughs)

Doug Duren 44:22 (laughs)

Joe Rogan 44:23 You know, they're so, uh, you know, nutritiously balanced diets. But the, the real ... What, what terrifies me is this potential for a pandemic disease also comes with an incubation period, and that we are looking potentially at ... Like, if you just objectively look with no hysteria and, and no h- hyperbole, you look at the history of diseases, diseases mutate, and, and many of them come from animals. This is why swine flu and avian flu and all these different things have actually come from either farm animals or wild animals that have somehow or another managed to transmit diseases that have morphed and mutated to become dangerous and deadly to human beings. This, to me, seems like a ticking time bomb. Like, it-

Bryan Richards 45:11 It di- ... It has the potential, yep.

Joe Rogan 45:12 We need one switch, one way or the other, like you've observed or they've observed, rather, with mice, and this could potentially infect human beings and spread across-

Doug Duren 45:23 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 45:23 ... I mean, the entire country like wildfire.

Bryan Richards 45:26 Well, we're seeing that spread right now in deer. You know, so in deer we're seeing, you know, clear geographic spread. We're seeing clear increases in prevalence and in areas where the disease has been present the longest. We are seeing population level impacts. There's locations in Wyoming where we've demonstrated, where we've proven that CWD is driving population decline in deer, so that's a ... That encapsulates why we should be concerned about deer.

Joe Rogan 45:53 And is this in mule deer?

Bryan Richards 45:54 That's in mule deer and in white-tailed deer.

Joe Rogan 45:56 And the mule deer have, uh, an extended range in terms of, like, their migration. The m- ... That's one of the things that we've realized, I believe over the last decade, right, is that mule deer travel far more, far longer and far longer distances-

Bryan Richards 46:10 On average.

Joe Rogan 46:11 ... than, than we ever thought before.

Bryan Richards 46:12 On average, yes, they do. Mm-hmm. Uh, even white-tails can. There's interesting, uh, research tidbit, the State of Minnesota, um, you know, they've got, uh, uh, what appears to be a fairly recent CWD outbreak in the southeastern part of the state. So their researchers are really trying to get ahead of this and figure out what could move this around. So they went in and captured deer in an adjacent area, put radio telemetry collars on these to see, well, just how far do they go. Um, this was in a ... in an article just about a week ago, pop- popular media article, so it's not published yet. But they had a doe, single doe, collared, that went 80 miles.

Joe Rogan 46:48 Wow.

Bryan Richards 46:48 Pretty long distance.

Joe Rogan 46:49 Now, 80 miles circular or 80 miles point to point?

Bryan Richards 46:52 80 miles as the crow flies from point to one direction.

Joe Rogan 46:55 Oh, Jesus Christ.

Doug Duren 46:55 Easy.

Joe Rogan 46:55 So in that 80 miles, could potentially be spreading CWD if it was an infected deer.

Bryan Richards 47:00 Sure.

Joe Rogan 47:01 Throughout crops, throughout ... I mean, and this is ...

Doug Duren 47:04 And then there's that exponential growth, so it's-

Joe Rogan 47:06 Yes.

Doug Duren 47:06 Once it's there, sure, it takes a long time for it to become a, you know, a, a, a large problem. And we're seeing that in ... We're seeing that in Richland County. Um, it crossed the river. Testing has been g- ... You know, surveillance testing has been going on. It crossed the river, and it just keeps moving up.

Joe Rogan 47:28 And it could be in, again, all these different plants, all these different berries. People could be eating these berries, eating these plants, fruits, vegetables, all these different things, and they could be potentially consuming these prions.

Bryan Richards 47:43 Well, they're being ... I d- ... I think it's very clear that there's exposure. Um, and, and I talk with Doug quite a bit about the difference between exposure and disease transmission. Okay? Um, so i- it is certain that lots of humans are exposed to disease-associated prion protein from CWD and likely from plant materials as well. Whether that will result in transmission of disease across that species barrier is an open question. We absolutely cannot say it will. We absolutely cannot say it will not. It's an open question, and one thing we can, though, uh, identify very clearly is that the rate of exposure is increasing exponentially. As disease has a larger geographic footprint and prevalence goes up, more and more hunters are, just by simple math, being exposed to that positive material. So we're rolling the dice, and when you do biological experiments, I mean, there's a certain likelihood that you'll see outcome A or outcome B. So if you keep rolling the dice enough times, you might see an alternative outcome. We cannot rule that out, so ...

Doug Duren 48:54 When, when we talked about this when you were on with, uh, uh, with, with Renella and I at, at the farm, uh, The Meat Eater podcast number 70, um, (laughs) uh, you ... Brian, you put it as the chances are very small at this point that it can ... Um, and this is what the CDC and the World Health Organization s- (laughs) ... uh, says as well, the chances are very small, minuscule even, but they're not zero. And, uh, I'm assuming that we continue to ... that that continues to be the, you know, the concern. And I know you're talking a lot, Joe, about, about ... and I get it because after all, humans. Um, but I've actually bea-... begun to focus more on the effect on the, on the resource, on the, on the, on the deer. I mean, I, tested positive animals. Uh, and, uh, we, we properly disposed of the meat, um, which is a whole nother, you know, line of discussion. Um, I'm still eating venison, but I'm not eating-

Joe Rogan 49:59 Are you testing the animals that you eat?

Bryan Richards 50:00 Yeah.

Doug Duren 50:01 Every one of them. We test every deer killed on the farm.

Joe Rogan 50:05 Now, uh, how long... When you raise a cow, how long before you kill it? Like, how, how long do you wait?

Doug Duren 50:11 Well, I do grass-fed beef.

Joe Rogan 50:13 Right.

Doug Duren 50:13 And this is actually, kind of, m- interesting. Uh, you were talking about the deer, the white-tailed deer on our place eating corn and-

Joe Rogan 50:20 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 50:20 ... beans and GMO corn, GMO beans, alfalfa, whatever they want to eat. I control what my grass-fed beef eat. I mean-

Joe Rogan 50:28 Right. You're not... Yeah.

Doug Duren 50:28 You're not some of my cattle.

Joe Rogan 50:29 Yeah.

Doug Duren 50:30 Uh, the one says hello, by the way.

Joe Rogan 50:31 Tell him I said hi. (laughs)

Bryan Richards 50:33 (laughs)

Doug Duren 50:33 (laughs) Anyway, um, but it's very controlled. So even though my deer are-

Joe Rogan 50:39 Could be infected, your cow will not be.

Doug Duren 50:40 Well, uh, well, and, and that they're, they're not organic.

Joe Rogan 50:43 Right.

Doug Duren 50:44 My cattle are.

Joe Rogan 50:45 Right.

Doug Duren 50:46 Um, because it is controlled.

Joe Rogan 50:47 How ironic.

Doug Duren 50:49 Oh, yeah. Um-

Joe Rogan 50:50 You know, I mean, you have farm animals in captivity that are organic, purely eating grass-

Doug Duren 50:56 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 50:56 ... as nature intended. And you got deer eating Monsanto corn.

Doug Duren 51:00 Yeah. Uh, uh-

Joe Rogan 51:01 (laughs)

Doug Duren 51:01 Yeah, believe me, (laughs) that it was... The irony isn't lost.

Joe Rogan 51:03 It's kind of crazy.

Bryan Richards 51:04 It is very. Yeah.

Doug Duren 51:05 Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, you know, and, and before anybody out there gets the idea that my cattle are confined in a little barnyard or anything like that.

Joe Rogan 51:13 No, it's a big la- big large area.

Doug Duren 51:15 A big pasture. They're... You know, they are, you know, free-ranging within that pasture. Uh, you know, the pasture raised. Um, so short answer, uh, with grass-fed beef, uh, I just sent four in. Um, unfortunately, none of it was ready. I was gonna bring you some, but, um, uh, they just went in on Monday. Uh, I was-

Bryan Richards 51:35 I would like to see them go through the security checkpoint carrying, you know, bags of beef with them. (laughs) But...

Doug Duren 51:42 (laughs) 26... Uh, so they were, uh, two years old and, two years old and two months or three months.

Joe Rogan 51:47 Now, with the incubation period that you were discussing earlier, you're talking about a two-year incubation period with deer before they potentially show any effects. So these animals would fall into that line between birth and slaughter, that that would be inside that incubation window for deer. Um, it could be potentially larger for cow, is that correct?

Bryan Richards 52:07 BSE, I think the incubation period is between three and five years. And so that's why one of the precautionary measures for BSE in the United States is we don't allow those older aged cattle into the human food chain.

Joe Rogan 52:20 What does BSE stand for?

Bryan Richards 52:21 Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, AKA mad cow disease.

Joe Rogan 52:25 Oh, wow.

Bryan Richards 52:26 So, mm-hmm. So that's one of the precautionary measures, is not allowing cows to get old.

Joe Rogan 52:31 Oh.

Bryan Richards 52:32 For mad cow disease.

Doug Duren 52:33 Well, and from my standpoint-

Bryan Richards 52:35 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 52:36 ... they're prime at 26, 27 months.

Joe Rogan 52:38 Right. And so when they are in an incubation period, they're still capable of distributing the disease, though, correct?

Bryan Richards 52:46 Well, that's with CWD and with scrapie in sheep as well. With BSE... And let me clarify, if CWD went into a cow, in a, in a natural world, we don't know exactly what it would look like. Um, we know what it looks like when we inject it into the brain of a cow, but we don't know what it would really look like. But BSE is quite different in that, um, similarly with, with the human prion diseases, um, a c- an individual with Kuru could not give Kuru to another human being. They had to consume it. So that... Was, was that artificial process involved. Same thing with BSE. Cow, a cow with BSE can't give BSE to another, because they're not shedding that infectious agent out into the environment. So when they-

Doug Duren 53:33 S-

Bryan Richards 53:33 ... stopped it, when they stopped feeding cows-

Doug Duren 53:36 Feeding cow to cow.

Bryan Richards 53:38 ... to cows.

Doug Duren 53:38 There's no transmission cycle.

Bryan Richards 53:40 But the disease wouldn't wait.

Joe Rogan 53:40 CWD is a different animal.

Bryan Richards 53:42 CWD and scrapie are different animals.

Joe Rogan 53:45 This is, like, BSE times 10 on steroids.

Bryan Richards 53:47 Well, they're contagious.

Doug Duren 53:49 Kind of freaking me out a little bit.

Joe Rogan 53:50 (laughs)

Bryan Richards 53:51 Because z- because these animals are shedding, okay, uh, that infectious agent. Cows with BSE are not shedding infectious agent, so CWD positive deer and scrapie positive sheep are. These two diseases are unique in the world of TSEs. TSEs, the prion diseases, are unique amongst themselves, but scrapie and CWD are in a different world of their own.

Doug Duren 54:15 (huffs)

Bryan Richards 54:17 So...

Joe Rogan 54:17 Okay. What, if anything, can be done?

Doug Duren 54:23 Well, I try to break this stuff down to, like, the most basic levels so a guy like me can understand it. Um, buy time, pay for science. That's sort of one of the things. Slow the sped- s- slow the spread of the disease. There's a lot of work being done, um, uh, all kinds of studies being done, um, different organizations and, and the, and the government. Uh, unfortunately, in Wisconsin, not as much as we should be doing. We're, you know, we're a hotbed of it. I think that in Wisconsin, quite honestly, that we've become an example of how not to handle a disease. And, uh, a lot of the other states have begun to, um, you know, take that idea that if you don't have it, you don't want it. So let's do what we can to stop it from coming here. That's why you're seeing things like, let's not transfer carcasses, that... You know, there's bans on being able to transfer, uh, carcasses in Wisconsin. In, in some cases, you can't take it to another county. You can take the finished meat, so you have to bone your meat in, uh, in the area, and then you can take it home, um, which, you know, is a bit of a problem for, you know, for some folks. Um, uh, we're beginning to stop the movement of, of captive deer-... from one, uh, farm to the other. But that's just recent and, and there've been hearings on that lately.

Joe Rogan 55:46 Yeah.

Doug Duren 55:46 So we have-

Joe Rogan 55:47 So people resist that, right? There's-

Bryan Richards 55:49 Sure. If your, if your economic vi- vi- vitality depends on selling and moving live deer, you're gonna be opposed to restrictions on your economic activity.

Joe Rogan 56:01 But that is one of the primary infection sources.

Bryan Richards 56:03 It's one of the infectious sources, yeah. So it'll-

Doug Duren 56:06 He'll always correct you-

Bryan Richards 56:07 When you say something like prime. (laughs) . What, what Doug's getting at is-

Doug Duren 56:11 This is a, like a primatologist. He says no bullshit. He wants the... (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 56:13 (laughs) .

Bryan Richards 56:13 (laughs) . Yeah.

Doug Duren 56:13 He's gonna like break it down.

Joe Rogan 56:15 So that's-

Bryan Richards 56:15 It's, it's a world I live in, so...

Doug Duren 56:17 Sure. Yeah.

Bryan Richards 56:17 We think of there's two-

Joe Rogan 56:18 I appreciate their world.

Bryan Richards 56:19 ... there's two mechanisms, primary mechanisms if we lump them together for how CWD moves. One is deer, to deer, to deer, to deer. That slow diffusive process of, you know, moving out on the landscape. That's really hard to deal with. The other one is this anthropogenic or human assisted movement, where humans are moving infectious material and that might be how it got from Colorado to Wisconsin in the first place. It's highly unlikely that a mule deer or white-tailed deer got up, woke up one morning in Colorado and decided to, you know, go 900 miles across the Mississippi River and settle in, you know, western Dane County.

Doug Duren 56:55 And back in the day, my dad and a bunch of his buddies used to go out to Colorado and they'd, uh, or Wyoming is actually where they went, and they hunted, uh, uh, uh, elk and mule deer and they bring the whole damn thing back. I mean, just what you did, right? You put it on the-

Joe Rogan 57:11 Hmm.

Doug Duren 57:11 ... back of the truck and off you went. And then, uh, processed. I mean, I can remember doing it in a garage in Cazenovia as a kid, you know, working there with knives, this was a great thing. Well, what do you do with the bones and the, you know, the, the non-meat stuff when you're done? Well, back in the day we use to, and it still happens, we take it out and put it in a, we'd call it bone pile, coyote pile or something like that.

Bryan Richards 57:33 It's dumped on the back 40.

Doug Duren 57:35 It get... Yeah. Well.

Bryan Richards 57:36 Where, where that still could have infectivity if it was a positive animal. So how soon after-

Doug Duren 57:43 So how it was brought to Wisconsin is-

Bryan Richards 57:44 Who knows? But anyway these are... So he's, he's absolutely correct. The, the 25 states that don't have CWD don't want to get it. They wanna do everything they can-

Joe Rogan 57:53 What, what states are these? Like what is it? Eastern states or-

Bryan Richards 57:55 Southeastern states and some of the far western states haven't picked it up. Um, if, uh, if you go to our website you'll see a map there, um, that shows the current known distribution of where the disease is. So the other states really don't want it. They don't want it bad. So it makes sense, you know, to look at these anthropogenic factors, human assisted, identify the possible mechanisms, how humans could bring CWD to them, to you, and stop them either with regulatory frameworks or with education. Teaching hunters that it's a risk to move carcasses around is likely much more effective than just putting a rule in place that says you can't do it.

Joe Rogan 58:34 And there are, um, unscrupulous people who purchase deer from these high fence operations and release them in the wild because they want big racks and animals that like... For people who don't know, there are these high fence operations. Uh, I shouldn't even call them high fence operations because some of them are wild animals that are contained in a fence. These are farms. They are farms that grow deer and they grow deer with special protein feed so they have enormous racks. So you have these really perverse specie- uh, uh, perverse examples of a deer. And people look at that and it like, to, to someone who enjoys wild animals you see those and you're like, it's like a stripper with triple F tits.

Doug Duren 59:18 (laughs) .

Joe Rogan 59:18 It's like what the fuck did you just do? Like these, they don't look real. They don't... Like they have like 80 points.

Doug Duren 59:26 Yeah, I-

Joe Rogan 59:26 Instead of like an eight-point buck which is, you know, very typical or a 10-point buck, you're like, "Wow, look at that monster." That's a natural animal that lives in the wild. They, they have these things that they don't even look like deer. They look like some, some cartoon.

Doug Duren 59:40 They're like that stripper with the... I'm sorry.

Joe Rogan 59:41 They're branded specifically for those characters.

Doug Duren 59:42 Like that stripper with the triple F tits, there are dudes who go, "I'm digging that."

Joe Rogan 59:48 Yeah, but it's obvious to all who are in the know.

Doug Duren 59:52 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 59:52 Like you go over a guy's house and he has one of those over his wall, you're like did you just walk right up to that thing and put a pistol in its head like The Deer Hunter?

Doug Duren 1:00:00 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:00 You know, like what, what is that?

Doug Duren 1:00:02 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:00:02 That's not even a wild animal. That's some weird science project.

Doug Duren 1:00:07 Well, and genetics play a role in-

Joe Rogan 1:00:10 Sure.

Doug Duren 1:00:10 ... Brian will correct me when I start to-

Joe Rogan 1:00:12 Yeah.

Doug Duren 1:00:12 ... veer off the science thing here.

Joe Rogan 1:00:13 (laughs) .

Doug Duren 1:00:14 But, um, but, uh, genetics play a role in, uh, in, in, in bigger deer.

Joe Rogan 1:00:19 Yes.

Doug Duren 1:00:20 And, and your, your friend, uh, John Dudley would say the number... He's, he's doing it. The number one way to get big antler deer is, it's not-

Joe Rogan 1:00:27 Let them grow.

Doug Duren 1:00:28 ... let them get old.

Joe Rogan 1:00:28 Let them get old and give them plenty of food.

Doug Duren 1:00:30 Yep.

Joe Rogan 1:00:31 Yeah.

Doug Duren 1:00:32 But genetics have a role in it too.

Joe Rogan 1:00:33 Yes.

Bryan Richards 1:00:33 There are three factors in production of antlers. It's genetics, age, and nutrition, are really the, the key three there. But now, you know, a lot of places will identify these as genetically superior. That's kind of a misnomer. When you get back to the definition of fitness, genetic fitness, there's only one measure of genetic fitness and that's how well represented you are in the next generation. Okay? So let's take an example where we took one of these, you know, 80 point whatever and let's re- release it out into the wild and during breeding season it comes across a prime three and a half or four and a half year old eight-pointer. You know, this physical specimen that you've witnessed them, they're unbelievable. So now if you put those up against each other in a mortal battle, I know who I'm putting my, my money on. Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:01:30 The wild animal.

Bryan Richards 1:01:31 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:01:31 Yeah, for sure.

Bryan Richards 1:01:32 Every time. And this is... So, so these animals while they're bred...... very much like livestock for very specific characteristics, big antlers. These don't necessarily translate into something that would be more fit out in the wild.

Joe Rogan 1:01:48 Well, let's also point out that w- the reason why you're bringing this up is these animals actually do fight to the death and it happens all the time. They kill each other in, in combat. That's the reason why they have those antlers in the first place. They don't have them to protect themselves against wolves like caribou do, they, they literally have them to fight with. You know, female caribou have antlers as well and they have these antlers so that they could try to fend off animals-

Bryan Richards 1:02:09 Mm-hmm.

Joe Rogan 1:02:09 ... that are trying to eat them. There's a big difference between that and elk and deer. They have them for combat. That's why once the breeding season is over, they shed them, um, and then they start all over again.

Bryan Richards 1:02:18 Yeah. There's an interesting example if you look to, to history. Um, it's an animal called the Irish elk, okay?

Joe Rogan 1:02:24 Those things were incredible.

Bryan Richards 1:02:25 They're, they're extinct now. Okay? They were, they were twice, three times the size of our normal elk and their antlers were measured in feet instead of inches. Okay? And so during their evolutionary time period when they were on the face of the earth, it was when, you know, animals were larger, predators were larger. These things got gargantuan. Okay? Then they disappeared from the landscape and at least, you know, they author... Author Stephen Jay Gould-

Joe Rogan 1:02:52 There it is right there.

Bryan Richards 1:02:52 There you go. Um, Stephen Jay Gould has, has offered up that likely what occurred was a change in habitat, that climate changed over time and that forests grew up. If you're in the plains and you have antlers that are seven, eight feet wide, you can walk around. But now when trees start to grow up, how can you survive when the world around you changed and you'd have to literally walk with your head turned sideways.

Joe Rogan 1:03:21 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 1:03:21 And Irish elk went extinct. So there's a very real example of how, you know, a, a phenotypic characteristic, these mega antlers, really in the long term were not in the best interest of the species.

Joe Rogan 1:03:34 Jamie, pull up a, a photograph of these farmed deer antlers. Just right... Just type in Google "ridiculous farmed deer antlers" and you get a sense of what we're talking about for the people that are watching this on YouTube because until you see it, you don't really... You, you don't understand how gross it's gotten.

Doug Duren 1:03:51 Yeah, I think one was called Goliath that I remember.

Joe Rogan 1:03:55 Well, there's, um... There w- there we go.

Doug Duren 1:03:57 There you go.

Joe Rogan 1:03:57 Perfect example. That is a perfect example. What in the fuck is that? 'Cause that's not a deer. Li- that, that thing is... That's crazy what they've done to that deer.

Bryan Richards 1:04:08 It's a product of selective breeding-

Joe Rogan 1:04:09 Yeah.

Bryan Richards 1:04:10 ... for specific characteristics that some people will pay a lot of money for.

Joe Rogan 1:04:13 Yeah. And there's certain high fence operations that you can go online and they, they... You know, this is what... Like, look at... Go back to that photo you just had with that guy standing there.

Doug Duren 1:04:24 Drawing.

Joe Rogan 1:04:24 Oh, it's a drawing. Yeah. Duh. You went too so quick I thought it was real. Look at that thing. I mean, that is just insane.

Doug Duren 1:04:31 Look at the one behind it, though.

Joe Rogan 1:04:33 Yeah.

Doug Duren 1:04:33 Very normal looking deer.

Joe Rogan 1:04:34 Yeah, yeah. It's probably a one-year-old.

Doug Duren 1:04:37 Yeah.

Joe Rogan 1:04:37 Yeah. These, uh... This is... There's these places that have these animals and some people will take these animals and then they import them. They purchase them, import them, and then release them into the, uh, air quotes "wild" and then they'll hunt them and then they'll pretend that that's a wild animal that they shot. And this is, uh, this is a source of CWD.

Bryan Richards 1:05:01 They are potential-... Well, okay, so a deer has to have CWD in order to be a risk, right? So it's been shown... I mean, in the lower 48 we're just... I think we're at 100 captive deer and elk facilities that have been shown to be CWD positive. Uh, so we can definitively identify that the captive cervid industry has been a part of moving CWD across the landscape. Uh, we know that, you know, CWD positive deer have been moved by the industry even across, you know, international and state lines. Okay?

Doug Duren 1:05:33 The ones in Korea are a great example.

Bryan Richards 1:05:36 R- right. And even... We had a recent one where a CWD positive farm in, in Wisconsin that can do trace backs, where this animal came from. It turned out it came from Pennsylvania, a game farm in Pennsylvania. And then, uh, doing testing in that source herd, they found additional positives there, so definitively. So now, while that's be-... I'll say that very clearly the CW or the captive industry is a portion of the equation, they're not the whole equation.

Doug Duren 1:06:01 No.

Bryan Richards 1:06:01 They're not the whole equation. So-

Joe Rogan 1:06:03 Where did it, where did it originate? You said the, the first testing of... The positive testing of this stuff was...

Bryan Richards 1:06:09 It was first described in 1967 in a research facility in the state of Colorado. Okay? That's not to say that was the first instance of CWD, it was the first time it was described in research animals.

Joe Rogan 1:06:22 So this is pre-deer farms?

Bryan Richards 1:06:25 Well, I think deer farms have been around for a long time. There's... If you google, you know, um, "tame deer" you'll find some from the, you know, the late 1800s when photographs became possible of, uh, deer following people around.

Joe Rogan 1:06:38 Mm.

Bryan Richards 1:06:38 So we've domesticated animals for a long, long time. But as an industry, probably really came into vogue in, you know, maybe the '60s and '70s. And more recently now it's grown. You know, that industry has grown exponentially. I used to work for, for Texas Parks and Wildlife before I worked for USGS and, uh, one of the, the things I did was I administered the, the deer breeding program for the state. So when I started this... Um, I didn't start the program, but when I came into that, that role there-

Doug Duren 1:07:08 What do you mean you administered it?

Bryan Richards 1:07:10 Uh, well, deer breeders in the state of Texas, like many states, need a permit from a state agency to conduct those activities. Okay? And so I was administrating that program. I think there were around 120, uh, licensed breeding facilities, white-tailed deer breeding facilities in the state at that point in time. You know, 10 years later when I left Parks and Wildlife in Texas, there were around 600 or 700. So it just grew exponentially.

Doug Duren 1:07:39 (imitates explosion)

Bryan Richards 1:07:40 And now, I believe there, there are around a thousand, um, captive deer facilities in the state of Texas.

Joe Rogan 1:07:47 Jesus.

Bryan Richards 1:07:48 Pennsylvania, there's around a thousand of 'em. Ohio's got several hundred, Wisconsin's got a couple hundred. Uh, so, so like I say, they're part of the equation, but I don't wanna, you know ... I don't wanna place all the blame for CWD moving it around because there's other possibilities for how this disease moves around. Um, Doug hit onto one of 'em, uh, and that's the, the idea of carcass movement. It hasn't been proven that this occurs but it's certainly, when you look at it from a s- from a scientific standpoint, it's very easy to identify. So if, if, you know, I butcher my own deer. So if I kill a deer, it happens to have CWD, I butcher my own deer, I've gotta do something with this stuff. Okay? Um, you know, the meat component in a deer is probably around 30%, 35%, something like that. So I've got a lot of other stuff. Landfills, it turns out, are very loathe to accept this material. You know, it's almost taboo now. "Ooh, it might have CWD so we don't want it at our landfill," because the effluent might be pumped out onto a farmer's field and they could come back and, you know, they see it as a liability. So I'd- I'd ... I've, I've got my deer bones and, and awful, the rest of the material, and I drive to the dump which is, you know, 25 miles away. And they say, "No. We're not taking that." Well now what am I gonna do with this stuff? So I could double bag it, you know, a little bit at a time and put it out in the trash, you know. Or maybe on the way home I'm driving past a state-owned, a state park or a state natural area, or a wildlife management area and I see a trail go down there. And I drive down that trail and, "Hey, there's a pile of deer bones and deer heads here." (object drops) Whoops. Man, did I knock that over. Sorry about that, Joe.

Joe Rogan 1:09:32 So-

Bryan Richards 1:09:32 Apologize for that.

Joe Rogan 1:09:33 No worries.

Bryan Richards 1:09:33 So, so it's easy-

Joe Rogan 1:09:33 I've done it a thousand times.

Bryan Richards 1:09:35 So it's easy to see how inadvertently-

Joe Rogan 1:09:38 Just h- hold your thought when you're not on the microphone. Just, uh, just ...

Doug Duren 1:09:42 That's, uh ... A- and it is one of the con- one of the concerns is how are we, uh, you know, how are w- what kind of hygiene do we have with the, the carcasses?

Joe Rogan 1:09:52 Yeah.

Doug Duren 1:09:52 It is something that we're talking about a lot more in Wisconsin now.

Bryan Richards 1:09:55 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 1:09:55 And it, and it's become an issue and one of the ... Interestingly, I'm on the County Deer Advisory Committee for Richland County, and we, um, it's a citizen group and we have some say in, um, uh, season structure and then how many antlerless permits there are. There's a lot of things we don't have any say in which is, you know, fine. I'd rather leave it to the biologists but because there are hunters involved, I- and I'm happy to be one of 'em. Um, one of the things that happened in our, in our spring hearings is that we had folks come in and say, "You know, we're concerned about, uh, chronic wasting disease and we don't wanna spread it on the landscape but when we put the bones out on the curb, they aren't taking it." On the, uh, Wisconsin DNR CWD website, there's a list of haulers who will take it, so there are some that will take it. There are some who don't. But I-

Joe Rogan 1:10:45 But the problem is where are they taking it?

Doug Duren 1:10:47 Well, they're taking it to clay-lined, um-

Bryan Richards 1:10:50 Landfills.

Doug Duren 1:10:52 ... landfills and i- i- m- how it's being handled there is, you know, there is some question. But it can be isolated so the effluent isn't being taken out and pumped onto fields. It's something that you, we can do something about.

Bryan Richards 1:11:03 Absolutely. There's pu- there's clear science, so ... You know, when we noted how prions bind to various surfaces, they bind to clay particles very, very tightly. And so one of the researchers at UW Madison, his name is Joel Petterson, you know, Tom was looking at this issue t- you know, 10 years ago to try and figure out is can it be safely done? Turns out if you put about an eight-inch clay liner underneath, you know, one portion of your landfill, you can put all the deer and all the prions there that you want to, and while the prions will then migrate down, you know, over time through the soil, when they come in contact with the cla- clay particles, they bind and they don't go anywhere. So it can be completely safely done. So there's, there's a, a way to dispose of these materials very, very safely but the, the, the thought of it, the risk associated with it, the liability, some, uh, some landfill owners are just like, "Nah. We'd rather not."

Joe Rogan 1:12:02 Mm.

Doug Duren 1:12:02 And interestingly because we have, we're challenged about this, well, what are we supposed to do? And I-

Joe Rogan 1:12:07 You can't incinerate it, right? Because they'll-

Doug Duren 1:12:09 Well, it, it ends up being a budget issue. In Wisconsin, everything's a budget issue and DNR, um, is having, you know, issues with that. And it, and it is something that I'd like to talk about a little bit but, um, uh, they were ... When, when this all first s- happened, uh, 17 years ago, they were incinerating, uh, deer and it became a, you know, a problem. Um, but there are, uh, landfills that are taking it and there are haulers who will take it. They have dumpsters that they use specifically for it. They're lined with, uh, you know, heavy metal plastic. They- it's, they're very specific to, um, deer bones, um. But some haulers aren't doing it so I, I contacted the head of, uh, solid waste for the state of Wisconsin and asked, "Well, how is this? I go on your website and I see some take it and some don't." And her response was, "We have no legislative authority to require them to take this." So some are doing it voluntarily and, and actually one solid waste hauler said to me, um, "Geez, we're putting a hell of a lot worse stuff in the, in the landfills than, you know, some deer bones." Um, but it's, you know, it's, it's simple hygiene. So one of the efforts that we're working on in, in Southwest Wisconsin right now, um, is to ... and it's a funding issue, um, is to put, place dumpsters in areas where, um, m- you know, like I'm, I'm volunteering to have one on my farm. It's a question of who's gonna pay for it and if it comes down to it, I'm gonna pay for the damn dumpster. I don't know, about $500 for a 20-yard dumpster. But, um, so that then, you know, people can come by, throw their, put their bones in that dumpster-

Joe Rogan 1:13:46 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 1:13:46 ... and then they'll be properly disposed of because we have a, a hauler near us who's said, "We're willing to bring them there."... um, uh, you know, to bring the dumpster there and then dispose of the bones properly, like they do with, uh, (smacks lips) uh, at our, at, at one of the lockers that one of the butcher shops that, you know, processes deer. They have the setup, which is actually when I saw it. That's when I was like, "Well, why don't, why aren't we doing that in, you know, countywide in, in various places so that people aren't chucking 'em in the ditch?" I mean, otherwise, you're holding onto the damn bones until you find out whether the thing's ... if you're, if you're being completely careful about the hygiene, which we, I've been trying to do. You know, suddenly, you got a pile of bones in the old milk house (laughs) down there until you find out whether it's positive or not. And I'm literally keeping it, the deer bones separate so that when I find out that deer A was non-positive, well, okay, I can put those out or something like that. Um, so that's one of the things. There's a difference between what we can, we can ... there's natural spreading of the disease and then there's human, like, putting 'em on trucks and, and moving 'em around-

Bryan Richards 1:14:54 Mm-hmm.

Doug Duren 1:14:54 ... it's, uh, or, or taking the bones around and doing that-

Bryan Richards 1:14:56 Yeah. This, this carcass thing is really a low-hanging fruit, and the idea that we can't fix this one, I mean, that's, that's ridiculous.

Doug Duren 1:15:02 And it, and it's, it's e- it's, it's easy. It seems easy to me. I mean, it's just a matter of will and money and then, and education obviously, um, that we're, we're providing opportunity for this. I'm, I'm, I've been working with the DNR a little bit on, on this, and we're in some discussions about, um, two things. One is, uh, self-service kiosks, so to make getting, uh, getting your deer tested easier, where you can-

Bryan Richards 1:15:28 That's good.

Doug Duren 1:15:28 ... essentially cut the head off the deer and leave it in a kiosk, um, with some information about where it was. And it, you know, they're fairly simple. They've been doing this for a couple of years on an experimental basis. Um, but again, it becomes a, uh, a budget issue. So we're hoping that what we're gonna be able to do is start something called adopt-a-kiosk, essentially, that hunters and, and people, or sportsmen's groups will, um, uh, gather those heads and then take them into the testing facility, and therefore, you know, keep the budget money targeted at doing the actual testing. Right next to that, that, uh, self-service kiosk really should be a dumpster that, um, (laughs) that you can throw your deer bones into, whether you know whether it's positive or not. Otherwise, you are holding it. The other thing that the DNR suggests that we do is if you kill the deer on your farm, leave the bones on your farm. Makes sense to me.

Bryan Richards 1:16:22 So that way, if it is positive, disease is already there and so you're not taking as great a chance of moving it. Now it's not an optimal solution to leave that stuff on the, on the ground surface. Uh, an optimal solution is dig a hole, but, you know, it's pretty hard to dig sometimes in December in Wisconsin. So ...

Doug Duren 1:16:41 Well, if, if I, if, if the dumpsters thing doesn't end up working out with me, there will be a hole. I mean, last year, we, I just kept the bones separate and the, and the ones that we, uh, I actually took the, the, the, from the one deer was, it, they went into the, the dumpster at the locker. Um-

Joe Rogan 1:16:58 This all seems to me d- uh, sorry to interrupt, but this all seems to me like Band-Aids on, uh, massive gunshot wounds.

Doug Duren 1:17:04 It is. But go back to the, uh, what I was saying before. Let's buy time-

Joe Rogan 1:17:08 Right.

Doug Duren 1:17:09 ... 'cause this shit's spreading, man.

Joe Rogan 1:17:11 Yeah.

Doug Duren 1:17:11 Let's buy time and pay for science, not, "Oh, there's nothing we can do about it," or the other one, that it's always been here, which I-

Joe Rogan 1:17:18 Yeah.

Doug Duren 1:17:18 ... think the guitar player talked about.

Joe Rogan 1:17:20 Yep. Is there any consideration whatsoever that there could potentially be a cure?

Bryan Richards 1:17:25 Absolutely. Absolutely. See, we hit on a couple things, and I think it's important to talk just very briefly about some very generic disease management practices. Number one, and this would be wildlife disease, human disease, livestock disease. Prevention, number one. If you don't have it, don't get it. Do everything you can. That's why we get vaccinated, okay, for various diseases. If you do get disease, do everything you can to keep from moving it artificially. So that's why we don't wanna move the carcasses around. That's why, you know, we don't wanna move captive deer around. That's why when we w- when we had an Ebola outbreak in 2015 in, uh, Liberia and Ivory Coast, we stopped commercial airline flights. We didn't want people inadvertently moving it out. So prevent, don't move it around, conduct surveillance around areas where it is to see what's going on. And, and states are doing that very well, largely. The next one is a tough one. Do something about disease. Manage disease to try and knock down prevalence incidents and get rid of the disease. So, that's challenging, but two other things. Number one is support research, because if we don't have a cure today, we won't have one tomorrow either. Right?

Joe Rogan 1:18:37 How is research funded right now?

Bryan Richards 1:18:40 Either by states or by the federal government, and there's not a ton of money. The last one is being transparent with your stakeholders, being open and communicative with them. So is, with many diseases, we have good therapeutics, okay? We can treat some diseases. CWD and other prion diseases, we have no therapeutics. We have no treatments right now, but people are certainly working towards them. Now it's likely it's gonna be very challenging to create a therapeutic, something that treats a prion disease, because treatment would then mean you would have to get past the blood-brain barrier. And once you start this cascading interaction of normal prions to disease-associated prions in the central nervous system, it's gonna be really, really challenging to stop that. I mean, it's a, it's a rollercoaster gone awry by the time it gets up into the brain. So then you're looking at preventative measures. The idea of vaccines is number one, and number two is looking at animals that, through their genetic profile, are resistant to disease. And there's some advances on each front. So-We can talk about vaccines for a moment. Um, so people, individual scientists, research outfits have been trying to develop vaccines for TSEs, for prion diseases, for a long time, okay? None have been successful. There's no, there's no human prion disease vaccines. There's nothing for BSE. There's nothing for scrapie. But there's research ongoing and there have been some advances. (inhales sharply) There is a Canadian research group that had a vaccine candidate for CWD. They thought it looked very promising so it went to a field, uh, production stage and they actually tried deploying this vaccine in a captive facility in Wyoming, okay, a research facility. It turned out that this vaccine was not ready for prime time and actually after, after, uh, um, giving this vaccine to some elk, giving a placego- placebo to other elk and then leaving 'em i- in a CWD-contaminated facility, actually the vaccinated animals got CWD faster and at higher rate than the non-vaccinated animals. So it turned-

Joe Rogan 1:20:49 Hmm.

Bryan Richards 1:20:49 ... out to be almost an anti-vaccine, okay? So it didn't work. But-

Joe Rogan 1:20:53 So instead of being inert, there was some sort of active CWD in the vaccine? Is that what it is?

Bryan Richards 1:20:58 No. I- i- it just, for whatever reason, it predisposed-

Joe Rogan 1:21:01 It accelerated?

Bryan Richards 1:21:02 It predisposed the animals. So it, it, it was a massive failure, but even from failures you learn, okay? So they, they're working now and based, you know, they learned a lot in that experiment. There's another research group centered out of the University of New York who published a, a paper, I think in 2015 was their most recent work, and they've got a vaccine candidate that provides some degree of protection, quote-unquote protection from disease. Now, n- all but one of the animals that they gave this vaccine to and then challenged with CWD got CWD, okay? So that's not good news, but the average incubation time was extended something like 300 days. Okay? So they're on the right track. They have a mechanism that is somehow interfering with the conversion from normal host prion protein to the disease-associated form. It's very valuable. Now will they get there? We don't know. So, but think about it. Even if we do create a vaccine that works, that prevents CWD, and prevent as opposed to slowing, there's a very big distinction. So if you have a vaccine that makes the average course of disease three years instead of two years or four years instead of two years, they still have CWD.

Joe Rogan 1:22:21 Are there-

Bryan Richards 1:22:21 They're not good.

Joe Rogan 1:22:21 ... any deer farms that have 100% negative CWD deer in them? Like none of them test positive? Like-

Bryan Richards 1:22:30 The va- the vast majority of deer farms have never had CWD.

Joe Rogan 1:22:33 The vast majority?

Bryan Richards 1:22:34 Absolutely.

Joe Rogan 1:22:34 So there is a potential that you could isolate these populations of completely CWD-free deer and if there's some sort of a mass die-off you could reintroduce these deer into the wild?

Bryan Richards 1:22:50 Well, okay, so you're ... Again, you're, you're looking at the difference-

Joe Rogan 1:22:53 I'm talking about just a giant die-off.

Bryan Richards 1:22:55 Yeah. Yeah. So you're, you're looking at the difference there between a herd that is CWD-free, which means it likely hasn't been exposed to CWD, versus animals that are CWD-resistant-

Joe Rogan 1:23:07 Hmm.

Bryan Richards 1:23:07 ... through genetics.

Joe Rogan 1:23:08 Right.

Bryan Richards 1:23:08 Okay? So to date we have, we have not seen any deer that are genetically