Deer and lyme disease

[Metalman2004]

I was watching the news this morning and they mentioned that environmental factors are leading to more ticks this year and they are predicting more lyme disease this year. Most of the stuff I have read says that you can't get the lyme disease if you cook the meat thoroughly ( 160 degrees). However, most backstrap recipes suggest being cooked to medium rare. I understand that basically all ground meat must be cooked thoroughly like a burger, but what about the nicer cuts of meat like the backstrap?

[flintlock]

This is the first time I heard of getting Lyme disease from eating venison. I know you can get it from a tick bite. I've gone the antibiotic route before because of it.

Here you go to ease your mind a little.

Originally Posted by CDC

You will not get Lyme disease from eating venison or squirrel meat, but in keeping with general food safety principles meat should always be cooked thoroughly. Note that hunting and dressing deer or squirrels may bring you into close contact with infected ticks.
There is no credible evidence that Lyme disease can be transmitted through air, food, water, or from the bites of mosquitoes, flies, fleas, or lice.

To read more on the subject look here. http://www.cdc.gov/lyme/Transmission/

[pickenup]

Just curious.
Where did you read/hear that you COULD get Lyme disease from eating meat?
Was it on the news?

[Metalman2004]

Fox news In Houston did a little spot on environmental conditions being right for more ticks than usual this year. It said that speculators think it could lead to higher numbers of animals and humans potentially getting lyme disease. They did not specifically say that you can get it by eating meat, I just thought I would look into it. After Googling it, I found a lot of very contradicting answers from random sights. I would trust the center for disease control much more than Google any day.

Lyme is a bacteria so treatment is easy Doxycycline or cipero will take care of it quickly in a human. It is when you leave it untreated and it goes for a long time.

My son got 1 tick a few summers ago while we were out Geocaching and he ended up with it. My wife daughter and I all had 4 or 5 I had 7 ticks and none of us got lyme. He did a round of Doxy and was good to go.

You might get it from eating raw game meat and have an open wound in your throat or stomach like an ulcer. So don't go playing Twilight in the woods eating raw deer and squirrels.

[Bocc44]

I live next door to Lyme CT, home of the dreaded disease. My father and I both had it...bad news. However, we were bit by a tick. Never heard of getting it from eating meat. You just go on and eat those delicious straps, bloody red. Think i'd rather have Lyme and a rare steak than no disease and shoe leather for dinner.

[jstgsn]

Lyme desease from eating venison is probably from the same guy who said you get lead poisoning from eating deer shot with a bullet. Anything to save bambi.

[lexjes]

Have to be anti-hunting crowd giving more fuel to their agenda. I do not trust the cdc very far either. A lot of sheepal will believe though.

lexjes

[langenc]

Igf I recall correctly lyme dont come from the meat but from a bite from the tick that likes to also bite the deer and live on the warm body.

Google lyme and read all about it.

Cpttango--Cipro should be saved for something that really needs it. Tetravycline is good for lyme--take regularly for the suggested duration, I dont recall probably 10 days or more.

Originally Posted by lexjes

Have to be anti-hunting crowd giving more fuel to their agenda. I do not trust the cdc very far either. A lot of sheepal will believe though.

lexjes

Ok so you don't trust the people who say don't eat deer or you get Lyme. And you don't trust the people who say eat all you want just make sure you cook it properly before consuming it. So where do you get your info on the matter?

Oh I agree with the save the good stuff for when needed. 90% of infections can be treated with old school antibiotics.

[lexjes]

Originally Posted by cpttango30

Ok so you don't trust the people who say don't eat deer or you get Lyme. And you don't trust the people who say eat all you want just make sure you cook it properly before consuming it. So where do you get your info on the matter?

1 Yes I did say that.
2 No I did not say that.

No I do not trust most of the garbage released by the Government. PERIOD
My info: Working with my dad as a teenager in the construction field while
watching him deal with inspectors and DEP. Working with health and safety officials (Government) in my own business affairs. The same cdc that informed us of aids, swine flu, bird flu, ect. I learned my info from the school of life lessons. Not from Dan Rather news.

lexjes

[Frogtop]

Originally Posted by Bocc44

I live next door to Lyme CT, home of the dreaded disease. My father and I both had it...bad news. However, we were bit by a tick. Never heard of getting it from eating meat. You just go on and eat those delicious straps, bloody red. Think i'd rather have Lyme and a rare steak than no disease and shoe leather for dinner.

I had a pathogenic micro professor quote: "Remember, it is better to have loved and failed a Wasserman test than never to have loved at all." The Wasserman test was an old seriological test for syphilis and this advice was given post antibiotic introduction and pre antibiotic resistant syphilis. Spray down with DEET and eat the meat. Hogs, and bears are a different story with the brucella and trichnia - wear gloves and cook it real good. Ya'll have any CWD in deer in your neck of the woods? Any concerns with it?

[polishshooter]

Originally Posted by Bocc44

You just go on and eat those delicious straps, bloody red. Think i'd rather have Lyme and a rare steak than no disease and shoe leather for dinner.

AMEN.


There are only three ways to cook beef. RARE, MEDIUM RARE, and BURNT.

There are only TWO ways to cook Venison... RARE and BURNT.


As for CWD, I am staying aware, even though no cases have been confirmed in Indiana yet, they have been confirmed in Michigan so it may be just a matter of time....

Just do NOT eat any brain or spinal cord matter of the deer and you should be OK. Yeah, if you hit it in the head or the spine you should discard any meat that MAY have been contaminated by brain or spinal matter....

...but since I do not eat the brain at all, about the only concession I have made so far is I no longer butcher my neck roasts by cutting through the spine. I "fillet" the meat around the neck bone/spine, and actually end up with a really nice roast if I feel like it, or really prime meat for grinding.

Since I am a long term "convert" to "deboning" all my other venison to do away with ANY "gamey" taste, it's amazing that it took CWD to make me realize that neck roasts too taste much better "deboned..."

[polishshooter]

But having said the above, let me say I have a great respect for Lyme Disease, since my Dad MAY have actually had it and it probably was the reason he was progressively more an more dependent on a wheelchair from the late 60s until he was pretty much an invalid and died of other causes in a hospital bed under 99% care in 1997...

He was an outdoorsman, not only a hunter but a logger with his own sawmill for over 20 years in the 50s and 60s, and having logged for others since the Depression.

In 1964 he started getting progressive weakness in his legs, and no doctor could diagnose the problem.

By the early 1970s his diagnosis was "some form" of Multiple Sclerosis, as he kept progressively getting weaker, and could walk less and less.

In the 1980s he ended up in the Veteran's Hospital, with "GI" Doctors determined to figure out what was wrong with him. The "Final" diagnosis paperwork was over 1" thick, with the final pages saying that while he had all the indications of ALS, EXCEPT for the fact that he was NOT dead since ALS usually was death in 5 years or less and he had it for over 20 years, and that it COULD be MS except he was not yet bedridden and had control of most of his bodily functions... that they could NOT determine what his disease WAS.

This was BEFORE anyone knew much about Lyme disease, and none of the tests were yet developed that could detect it.

But the more I read of Lyme disease, I am convinced that is what my Dad suffered from for more than 30 years. And while once contracted it cannot be cured, it CAN be treated and the symptoms CAN be controlled.

I just wish we would have known it back then, so my Dad would not have suffered as much as he did, for that long.


But then again, as my Dad always said, "You gotta dance with the girl you got!"



I understand him more and more as I get older.

[Zane71464]

Here in my area with the warm like winter we had this past year, I can say the ticks are as bad as I have ever seen them, EVER!
And one thing I've seen this year that I've NEVER seen with deer and ticks, is that on some of my trail cam pics that I've reviewed,
(and not saying you can get lyme disease from eating deer meat)
but on some of the pics, and will post some later on with time permiting, that on a few deer, I've noticed what I thought was "growths" on their necks and mid backs.
I got to zooming in on the picks, and it's "bulges" of masses of ticks, if that makes sence.
I zoomed in on one pic,and there was a "mass" of ticks on one deers head that was as large, if not larger than my fist.

Polishshooter, very sorry to hear about what happened to your Dad.