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"Fighting Chronic Wasting Disease"Hello, and thank you all for joining us here today. It's wonderful being back here with all of you and especially Governor McCallum here in Wisconsin, where people don't complain if it gets below 60 degrees in November. I love being back home in Wisconsin, especially this time of year - when the cool temperatures tell me one thing: Hunting season is upon us. Many of us here, including Governor McCallum and me, are hunters. We've spent some of the most enjoyable times of our lives roaming the beautiful, unspoiled regions of our great state hunting deer and turkeys. But chronic wasting disease has raised important questions around this year's hunt for our families. We don't have all the answers yet, but I want you to know that we are working very hard to come up with solutions - both in Washington and here in Wisconsin under Governor McCallum's leadership. Hunting is part of our culture - passed down from generation to generation. And, as you all know, it is an extremely important conservation tool. Controlling our deer herd is an ecological imperative, and hunters are our primary means of controlling the population. That's why we're working so hard to respond to CWD and why I'm here to make a couple of announcements. First, I'm pleased to announce today that Food and Drug Administration is going to commission two studies to assess the human health risk of chronic wasting disease - part of our comprehensive effort to combat the spread of the disease in deer and elk herds across the country. These studies will examine whether CWD is transmissible from animals to humans and what the possible health effects would be if it can be transmitted. We also want to identify areas where intervention by HHS agencies or other agencies could substantially lower the chance of potential risk from CWD. This is something we must do because our hunters and our families must know whether CWD is a threat to our food supply and our way of life here in Wisconsin. That is why we will aggressively pursue this research and provide assistance to states combating CWD. Also, we announced last week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is awarding Wisconsin a grant of more than $93,000 to monitor potential human risks related to CWD. Governor McCallum applied for this grant and I'm here with him to applaud his leadership and foresight in applying for this federal assistance. Governor McCallum is acting aggressively to stop the spread of CWD in Wisconsin's dear herd and is committed to making sure that the potential health risks to humans are determined and dealt with effectively. As I said earlier, this is part of our comprehensive approach to studying and combating the potential dangers of CWD. Overall, we're proposing to invest more than $29 million in fiscal year 2003 to expand research efforts in order to fight the growing threat of prion diseases, including CWD, among the nation's deer and elk populations. That's a nearly nine percent increase over the current fiscal year. At a time when this devastating disease is harming deer and elk herds in Wisconsin and throughout America, we must do all we can to provide additional resources to research and combat CWD. Our efforts today will have tangible implications for Wisconsin families in the near future. So now I'm pleased to turn the podium over to our Governor for his comments and then we'll be glad to take your questions. Last Revised: November 5, 2002 |
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