Dr Osterholm, who is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told lawmakers that laboratory research suggested it was "probable" that human cases of CWD would occur in future.
Discussing his experience of mad cow disease being transmitted to humans, he said it was likely CWD would also occur through eating contaminated meat. “It is possible that the number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events,” he told a hearing with lawmakers.
He added: “If Stephen King could write an infectious disease novel, he would write about prions like this”.
CWD can incubate for more than a year before animals display the symptoms, so US officials recommend that deer hunters test meat before consuming it.
Wildlife experts have warned that while still rare, the disease is virtually impossible to contain because the disease is neither viral nor bacterial and can remain in the environment for several years.
Peregrine Wolff, a Nevada Department of Wildlife veterinarian, said the state's officials have taken to testing corpses and monitoring migratory elk and deer at the state line with neighbouring Utah for signs of the sickness.
Nevada also introduced a ban earlier this year on bringing certain animal body parts into the state, including the brain and the spinal cord that can contain large concentrations of prions.