OCT-NOV 97 - HOME

Mad Cow U.S.A.:

Could the Nightmare Happen Here?

Mad Cow U.S.A. is the terrifying, true tale that industry hopes to censor. The U.S. has its own versions of the brain-wasting disease killing cows and people in Britain. In the U.K., the meat industry feeding practice of "animal cannibalism" has unleashed a deadly human dementia easily mistaken for Alzheimer's, and spread by infected meat. Yet, U.S. agribusiness still feeds billions of pounds of animal waste back to pigs, chickens, cows, dogs and cats. Rampton and Stauber reveal an amazing world of brilliant scientists, callous industry, courageous victims and cowardly bureaucrats, united by a mysterious killer that threatens a global epidemic-unless we heed this warning.

Mad Cow U.S.A. shatters the false belief that the government and food industry would never let it happen here. Although Europe has banned most of the feeding practices linked to a new killer disease in humans and animals, "animal cannibalism" continues here more extensively than anywhere in the world.

Even as tens of thousands of cows died in Britain, the government denied the risk to human beings. Knowing of similar risks in the U.S., government and industry have managed a successful public relations offensive to keep Americans in the dark. Rampton and Stauber expose, for the first time, the deadly game of "dementia roulette" being played with our food supply.

A U.S. version of this mysterious disease agent has killed sheep for half a century, and has been suspected in cattle and pigs here for decades. Yet, the U.S. government failed to act to prevent a U.S. epidemic until June, 1997, and the steps taken remain inadequate.

In Britain, scientists recognized "animal cannibalism" as the cause of the disease in 1988 and began banning rendered animal by-products from cattle feed. In 1991 U.S. officials also concluded that stopping the feeding of rendered by-products to cows was prudent, but failed to act because "the cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be substantial."

Rather than invoking the "precautionary principle" to protect human health, the food industry is waging a war on free speech, passing new libel laws in more than a dozen states criminalizing citizens and journalists who speak out for food safety. The first lawsuit was brought against Oprah Winfrey for a 1996 show examining U.S. risks of mad cow disease.

The emergence of mad cow disease should be a loud warning shot across the bow of the food industry, demonstrating how previously unknown risks can become catastrophic because of factory farming techniques. But a combination of government cover-up in Britain, industry and bureaucratic collusion in the U.S., and poor reporting by the media have kept this threat hidden from American view. Until now, when Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber answer the question of Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?

Stauber and Rampton are co-authors of Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (Common Courage Press). For more information visit their website at: www.prwatch.org

"It's not just cows that are mad, so are our so-called consumer protectors. You'll be mad-as-hell too after reading this dynamite book." -Jim Hightower, author & talk show host

"Whether you eat meat or just the ground-up news fed by the corporate media, you'd have to be crazy not to read Mad Cow U.S.A." -Laura Flanders, author, Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting

Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here? By Sheldon Rampton & John Stauber, Common Courage Press, Monroe, ME, ISBN: 1-56751-111-2 Hardcover 256 pages, $24.95

McDonald's to Serve British Beef

The Associated Press carried two stories about McDonald's and Burger King both ending their 15-month ban on British Beef due to its likely connection between a fatal brain disease in humans and meat from cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known as "mad cow disease."

"We will begin buying British beef immediately and the new supplies will start to be served in restaurants over the next few weeks," McDonald's managing director Andrew Taylor announced after meeting with Agriculture Minister Jack Cunningham.
The company, which has 760 restaurants in the United Kingdom, had been spending more than $37.5 million a year on British beef and had been buying 7,000 cattle a week-or about one in every 12 British cows that went to market for slaughter.

-U.S. McLibel Support Campaign
Email dbriars@world.std.com
PO Box 62, Craftsbury VT 05826-0062,
Phone/Fax 802-586-9628,
http://www.mcspotlight.org/

OCT-NOV 97 -- N.C.Xpress -- Archives -- Electrons to the Editor