So, prions are like, a level of "life" below even viruses. They're not alive (and neither are viruses technically). They're essentially just misfolded proteins

So, prions are like, a level of "life" below even viruses. They're not alive (and neither are viruses technically). They're essentially just misfolded proteins that when a cell attempts to break the protein apart and use it, it causes a problem in the enzymes that break the protein and forces them to replicate that protein. Mad cow disease was (is?) a prion disease. Since they're just proteins and not living creatures, even heating them doesn't kill them. They can't infect you like a virus or bacteria can, they basically all do the same thing, cause brain deterioration. They can't mutate to become more virulent, and they are spread through food consumption and usually caused by cannibalism. Whether a prion can damage cells in an animals brain depends on its DNA sequence and the enzymes their cells create to break apart certain proteins. We currently don't know if chronic wasting disease can hurt humans, and there are tons of prions all over the place all the time and you ingest them and most of them don't do anything bad to you. So there's no telling with CWD yet.