Chronic Wasting Disease — an always fatal disease that affects deer, elk and other animals — has been spreading across the country for the past few decades.

When the presence of Chronic Wasting Disease was first discovered in Pennsylvania deerhalf a state away, locally the reaction was one of superficial concern. Wishful thinking was that the always-fatal neurological disease caused by a misfoldedprotein called prions in deer and elk would somehow contain itself.