Madison: A new study says chronic wasting disease has been found in the venison of infected deer. But there's still no evidence the disease can be transmitted to humans.

Alan Crossley is the DNR's Chronic Wasting Disease Project Leader. He's the guy who calls hunters to tell them their deer tested positive for CWD. "About 40% of the people who shot a positive deer indicated to me they'd already eaten it, or were planning on eating it."

Those numbers may be about to change, based on a new study that says the prions that cause CWD have been found in venison meat. Previously, the prions were mostly found in the brain and spinal cord fluid.

Hunters thought they could avoid CWD by simply not eating the internal organs. Now, it could be in the meat of an infected deer. "Whether it's in the muscle fiber itself, whether it's lymph tissue that's present, whether it's nervous tissue that innervates the muscle–we don't know," says UW Professor Judd Aiken, a prion researcher.

Aiken is admittedly cautious, but he says you shouldn't eat any deer shot in the eradication zone. "I don't think if you've consumed venison it's something you need to worry about, but why take the risk is what I'm saying."

The Department of Health and Family services thinks differently. "At this point there's nothing new to do with the public health risk with this," says spokesperson Stephanie Marquis.

Marquis says their advice to hunters remains the same. "We want to error on the side of caution and still have people get their meat tested but we still haven't seen CWD in humans and so we don't want this research to be alarmist unnecessarily."

Even with the new info, Crossley doesn't expect to change any hunters minds about eating venison from an infected deer. "Most people have already decided by then what they're decision is going to be."

The study also showed here is still no evidence that CWD can be transmitted to humans. Research indicates there is a species barrier that keeps us safe.