illnesses are, according to this story, under investigation by medical

experts who want to know whether chronic wasting disease has crossed from

animals into humans, just as mad cow disease did in Europe.

The story explains that the men knew one another and ate elk and deer meat

at wild game feasts hosted by one of them in Wisconsin during the 1980s and

'90s. All three died in the 1990s. Investigators want to know whether the deaths

were just a coincidence or whether the men contracted their diseases from the

meat of infected game. There has never been a documented case of a person

contracting a brain-destroying illness from eating wild animals with chronic

wasting disease. Dr. Larry Schonberger, a specialist at the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention in Atlanta, was quoted as saying, "We are not saying it

absolutely can't happen. We know that it's a mistake to say that. It gets a lot

of people scared and it has economic consequences and everything, so we need to

check it out." The story goes on to explain that the Wisconsin Division of

Health and the CDC are looking at autopsy results and other records regarding

James Botts, Wayne Waterhouse and Roger Marten. Waterhouse, of Chetek, Wis., and

Marten, of Mondovi, Wis., both 66, died in 1993. Botts, 55, of Blaine, Minn.,

died in 1999. Waterhouse and Marten were avid hunters; Botts fished. Waterhouse

and Botts died of what was diagnosed as Creutzfeldt-Jakob, their families said.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob is always fatal and occurs in just one in a million people.

Marten died of Pick's disease, a more common brain-destroying disorder, said his

son, Randy. Jeff Davis, the state epidemiologist, was cited as saying that four

or five cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob are diagnosed in Wisconsin each year. What

makes the deaths of Waterhouse, Botts and Marten worth investigating is that the

men knew one another and attended game feasts that Waterhouse held at his cabin

near Superior, Davis said.

The above provided by:

Paul M. Raynes, Deputy Director
Division of Federal-State Relations
(301) 827-2910; FAX (301) 443-2143
Cell Phone (240) 888-1546
praynes@ora.fda.gov