by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

Investigative journalist Nicols Fox, in her important new book Spoiled, calls mad cow disease the "Chernobyl" of food safety issues. So far 19 people in Britain are dead or dying from the human version of the disease, which they apparently contracted from eating infected British beef a decade ago. How many more will die? With a disease that takes years to incubate, no one can say. Some scientists predict a couple of hundred deaths; others say the number could reach hundreds of thousands.

Last year PR Watch exposed the "PR cover-up" that has lulled the U.S. public into a false sense of security about the possibility that mad cow disease--or something equally dangerous--could emerge here. Govenment officials glossed over human health in order to guard the the vested interests of the the world's largest meat industry. In 1991 officials recognized that stopping cow cannibalism was the best approach to prevent a US outbreak, but concluded "the disadvantage is that the cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be substantial."

No action was taken, in fact, until June of this year when the Food and Drug Administration finally announced a regulation to restrict the feeding of most meat and bone meal from ruminant animals (cows sheep, goats) back to other ruminants. Unfortunately, and predictably, the regulation is filled with loopholes, designed primarily to protect the status quo in the meat industry. It's the kind of law you get when the public is excluded from debates over public policy.

The American public is kept out of the debate by PR management and lousy journalism--and, now, by a massive attack on our most fundamental rights of free speech and self-government. "Food disparagement laws" are the latest technique for intimidating and silencing citizens, activists, academics and journalists who participate in public discussion and decision-making over food safety issues. This "PR cover-up." may not be as dramatic as Richard Nixon's Watergate coverup of a quarter century ago, but it is at least as effective at manipulating public opinion and defining our reality.