Mad Cow Facts

By David Ropeik- December 31, 2003
The Washington Post

Abstract: for complete text, please click contact the Washington Post

The coverage of mad cow disease is demonstrating the tendency for reporters and editors to play up the dramatic, the frightening and the controversial aspects of risk stories, and to play down or omit altogether information that puts the risk in perspective. This fans public fears and drives demands that the government spend time and money protecting us from risks that aren’t as big as such coverage leads us to believe.

Consider Monday’s newspapers. The front pages of the New York Times, The Washington Post and many other newspapers reported that “Cow’s Meat Reached Retailers in Eight States”[The Post, Dec. 29]. Why is this front-page news, given that the overwhelming scientific evidence, developed from years of rigorous testing in Britain at the height of the epidemic there, shows that meat is not infectious?

The Post story, in paragraph two, reports: “In the strongest indication so far that significant amounts of meat have been eaten, about 100 consumers have called U.S. Department of Agriculture hotlines to say they have consumed the recalled meat and are worried about their health.” In the sixth paragraph, The Post finally reports that there is no known risk from eating the meat. The New York Times waits three paragraphs before offering this reassurance.

A Monday story in the Wall Street Journal, “Scientific Data Offer No Proof of Beef Safety,” says that “the scientific evidence behind those claims [that beef is not a risk material] isn’t as certain.” In the first 18 paragraphs, the story raises doubts based on initial findings that infectious prions, the misshapen protein believed to spread the disease, have been found in muscle meat in hamsters and mice, before describing the extensive and careful scientific testing in Britain that failed to show any evidence that meat from cows can spread the disease.

Finally, consider that in 2001 a study by our center at Harvard found that if mad cow disease occurred in the American cattle herd, the chance that it would spread to other animals or pose a threat to human health is extraordinarily low. This is because of the feed ban. Even with incomplete compliance, this ban keeps the disease from expanding through the herd, all but eliminating the chance that infected material will reach our tables. An isolated case, or several, is possible. But a large-scale threat to animals or humans is highly unlikely.

Yet this important perspective has barely been mentioned by the major news outlets in America. Of more than 40 stories in the Wall Street Journal as of Dec. 29, only one mentioned the study, in the fourth paragraph from the bottom. In 38 stories in The Post, the results were cited in the last three paragraphs of a single story. USA Today has run 40 stories on this case of mad cow disease and mentioned these results just once. The Associated Press, Reuters and network television have all given similarly scant notice to this important part of the mad cow story. And the New York Times has not described these results once.

But the coverage has been rich with quotes from critics, who are given much more space and more prominent locations within the stories, hypothesizing that this is “the tip of the iceberg” (almost certainly not), that “we should test every animal before its meat is sent to market” (although meat is almost certainly not a risk), and that “the actual regulations themselves are not protecting the American consumer.” (They are, though perhaps not as much as they could.) These are important voices to include. But so is careful, peer-reviewed science.

Critics who say this is done to “sell papers” are only half right. Certainly newspaper editors and TV news directors want a dramatic story that will sell tomorrow’s product. But reporters are after something else. They want their story on the front page, or to lead the newscast. But whether for profit or for professional ego, controversy and fear get public attention, so editors and reporters play them up. And the public is left more afraid of some risks than the science suggests is justified. That fear can cause us to divert public resources from risks that pose a greater threat but that get less coverage.

Mad cow disease offers a warning to America: We need more balanced journalistic coverage of this, and all risks, in the name of public health.

The writer is with the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.

David Martosko
Center for Consumer Freedom
December 24, 2003

Washington, DC – The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), a radical animal rights group masquerading as a medical charity, has sunk to a new low. PCRM is using the discovery of a single, isolated case of mad cow disease as ammunition to further the cause of its parent group, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Today the Center for Consumer Freedom called on PCRM to stop misleading Americans and come clean about its animal-rights motive for attacking Americans who eat meat.

PCRM has well-documented ties to the animal rights movement, including nearly $1 million in financing from PETA. PCRM’s president, a non-practicing psychiatrist named Neal Barnard, sits on the board of The PETA Foundation along with PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk. PCRM has asserted itself as a home for anti-meat nutrition zealots who promote strict vegan eating at the expense of good health and common sense.

David Martosko, Director of Research at the Center for Consumer Freedom, said: “The mission of this phony ‘Physicians Committee’ is the same as PETA’s: to remove meat from our diets by any means necessary. In the face of mad-cow fear, the group is actually advising people to stay away from chicken as well. Steering an unsuspecting public toward a radical animal-rights lifestyle isn’t very ‘responsible.’”

The American Medical Association has soundly rejected PCRM’s advice in the past, calling the group’s recommendations “irresponsible and potentially dangerous to the health and welfare of Americans.” In a public censure, the AMA has marveled at “how effectively a fringe organization of questionable repute continues to hoodwink the media with a series of questionable research that fails to enhance public health.”

Martosko added: “It’s disturbing, but not surprising, that PCRM would try to stir up fear to advance its radical agenda. Thankfully, most Americans know better than to take dietary advice from PETA. But when animal rights lunatics put on the sheep’s clothing of the medical profession, the media and the public end up being seriously misled.”

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices. To learn more, visit www.ConsumerFreedom.com.

The Center for Consumer Freedom is a nonprofit coalition supported by restaurants, food companies, and consumers, working together to promote personal responsibility and protect consumer choices.For media comment, contact our media department at 202-463-7112 ext 133

By Justin Kastner and Douglas Powell - December 24, 2003
http://www.foodsafetynetwork.ca/

U.S. food safety officials have been on the lookout for mad cow disease. Now that they have finally found it, they should note how Canada managed a very similar scenario just a few months ago.

A whisper of the words bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease) conjures up images of the United Kingdom’s despairing bout with the disease during the 1990s. But while USDA officials should be mindful of BSE’s devastating potential (which the U.K. story tells), they should focus on the Canadian experience with BSE.

Canada’s experience reveals the value of transparently showcasing to the public a vigilant, proactive regulatory system, while acknowledging the likelihood that the disease is most likely not limited to just one animal. In Canada, this strategy has paid real dividends, engendering enough consumer confidence to yield an actual increase in domestic beef consumption. No other country with a BSE discovery has accomplished that.

Tuesday’s announcement of the presumptive discovery of a case of BSE in the U.S. will test whether the two North American giants can learn from each other. Since the 1800s, agricultural trade and scientific cooperation have been hallmarks of Canadian-American relations. Nineteenth-century tariff wars, ongoing squabbles over agricultural subsidies and softwood lumber, and last May’s discovery of mad cow disease in western Canada have all tested economic interdependence and scientific harmonization at the 49th parallel. Yet the two countries have persisted as each other’s most important trading partner and, historically, the two nations have adopted scientifically similar approaches to ensure the safety of the food supply.

Today, Canada’s and the United States’ economic partnership and scientific like-mindedness are conspicuous in international fora, and hopefully, the two countries will continue to mimic each other?s evidence-based approaches to food safety regulation.

As Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials did six months ago, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service officials should focus on the real question at hand: can the disease be controlled and contained?
Based on current information, the answer is yes, which should lend some comfort to consumers and the international community. Canada’s and America’s findings were both made courtesy of proactive,
vigilant surveillance systems.

In the Washington state case, a veterinary inspector followed routine procedures by singling out a sick animal and requesting that it be tested for BSE. High-risk materials (including the brain and spinal cord) were removed from the animal, and a series of tests were begun.

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August 7, 2003 by Dennis T. Avery

CHURCHVILLE, VA—Mad cow disease has now reached Canada—one case, affecting a beef steer in remote Alberta. No one knows how the disease got there. Across the Atlantic, in Britain, more than 167,000 cows have been diagnosed with the disorder since 1986.

Fortunately, fewer than 150 people have died from “new variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease” (nvCJD), the fatal human disease linked to “mad cow,” and the rate of new cases has slowed to a near-halt.

Awful as are 200 hopeless, lingering human deaths, the toll has been much less than we had feared it would be. At one time, authorities believed that Europe’s “mad cow” epidemic might eventually claim 800,000 human victims. First World countries have long since banned the feeding of potentially infectious animal nerve and brain tissue to ruminant animals, the apparent source of the mad-cow epidemic.

The human death toll from the world’s current SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), outbreak is above 250 and climbing. As it turns out, SARS, too, is an animal-transmitted disease. The most likely source is the wild civet cat, which is still hunted and eaten in China. Virus samples from civet cats are genetically very similar to the coronavirus that causes human SARS, and China’s wild game vendors have an elevated count of SARS antibodies.

In addition, at least ten Americans have been hospitalized for treatment of monkey pox, a viral infection. The outbreak has been traced to pet prairie dogs sold from a pet shop, where they may have come in contact with a Gambian pouched rat from Africa. (The United States has banned the sale of prairie dogs, pouched rats, and five other rodent species.)

Sad as these developments are, they should not surprise us. As long as human beings have been keeping domesticated animals, the latter have given diseases to humans. For many years we have lived with various semi-deadly strains of Asian flu viruses, which are widespread among that densely populated region’s poultry flocks. Recently, Hong Kong officials ordered the slaughter of all of the colony’s poultry in 1997 after six people died of “Avian flu.” Studies showed that the virus spread readily from chickens to people but was much less contagious from one person to another.

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By Steven Milloy - May 29, 2003
Fox News

Excerpt — For complete article, please visit Fox News.

“Mad cow disease was diagnosed in a Canadian cow this week, setting off a new round of predictable, but groundless panic.

The U.S. government promptly banned imports of Canadian beef and cattle. Investors dumped the stock of beef-related companies, notably McDonald’s, which lost $1.5 billion in market value.

And of course, what health scare would be complete without media hype?

Front-page coverage in the New York Times, for example, reported that eating meat from diseased cattle has allegedly caused more than 100 human deaths in Europe since 1994 and “raised questions about the health benefits of eating beef for many consumers around the world.”

There’s no question that bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly called “mad cow,” is a highly infectious, neurological disease in cattle. But the notion that people can contract a human form of “mad cow” disease by eating beef from infected cows is more bun than burger.

The first epidemic of mad cow broke out among cattle in the U.K. in 1986. Beginning in 1994, human cases of a supposedly novel brain disease, called new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD) began appearing in the U.K.

Though laboratory testing seemed to indicate that BSE and nvCJD were similar, no one could determine with certainty whether and how BSE was related to nvCJD.”