That "study" is a joke, and no one should be surprised the only placed it was published was Yahoo. They don't even know if they guy that died ever ate an infected deer. They just assume he did because he's a hunter and a positive deer had been found in that area, though they convenient leave out how many and if they were even wild deer. No longer does the term "study" have any legitimacy, the vast majority that you read about on the internet have a predetermined goal. In this case, it's to scare people from eating deer meat, i.e, keep people from hunting.
It was published in Neurology, which is a medical journal. Yahoo just picked it up and regurgitated it for the general public. Happens all the time in "science news". I have first-hand experience with it, and sometimes it's interesting to see what direction/spin journalists will put on a journal article. If you want to know the nitty-gritty (and if you can get access) it's always a good idea to read the original journal article. You're right though; "study" doesn't really apply. It's really a report that is intended to call attention to the issue so that other doctors/scientists will be on the lookout and do more work in the future. That seems to be the intention of the original authors anyway.
There is some info that relates CWD, CJD, Mad Cow......to Alzheimer's.
...and others too. This entire group of diseases is very poorly understood, so poorly understood in fact, that (more or less behind the scenes) there's still some debate as to whether prions are the infectious agent or merely a symptom. Check out some of the work by Laura Manuelidis from Yale, who suggests that endogenous lentiviruses could be playing an important role.
