Howard Lyman, an ex-rancher, vegetarian activist and employee of the U.S. Humane Society, is being sued together with Oprah Winfrey by Texas cattleman who say Lyman and Oprah made "disparaging comments" about beef on the Oprah show of April 16, 1996. Other guests on the program included Dr. Gary Weber, a spokesman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, and Dr. William Hueston of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Here is a transcript of what was actually said on the show. To order a full transcript, including portions of the program that dealt with other food-related safety issues such as E. coli poisoning, call 1-800-777-8398.

---

Oprah: You said this disease could make AIDS look like the common cold?

Lyman: Absolutely.

Oprah: That's an extreme statement, you know.

Lyman: Absolutely, and what we're looking at right now is we're following exactly the same path that they followed in England. Ten years of dealing with it as public relations rather than doing something substantial about it. One hundred thousand cows per year in the United States are fine at night, dead in the morning. The majority of those cows are rounded up, ground up, turned into feed and fed back to other cows. If only one of them has mad cow disease, it has the potential to affect thousands. Remember today in the United States, 14 percent of all cows by volume are ground up, turned into feed, and fed back to other animals.

Oprah: But cows are herbivores. They shouldn't be eating other cows.

Lyman: That's exactly right, and what we should be doing is exactly what nature says. We should have them eating grass, not other cows. We've not only turned them into carnivores, we've turned them into cannibals.

Oprah: Now see, wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me just ask you this right now, Howard. How do you know the cows are ground up and fed back to the other cows?

Lyman: Oh, I've seen it. These are USDA statistics, they're not something we're making up.

Oprah: Now doesn't that concern you all a little bit, right here, hearing that?

Audience: Yeah!

Oprah: It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger.

Audience: (claps loudly and shouts) Yeah!

Oprah: Dr. Gary Weber says we do not have a reason to be concerned, but that in itself is disturbing to me. Cows should not be eating other cows!

Weber: Well, let me clarify that. There is a reason to be concerned. We've learned from the tragedy in Great Britain and made a decision here. ... We started taking initiatives ten years ago to make sure this never happened here. Let me go back and correct a couple of things. Number one, we do not have BSE in this country and we have a ten-year history of surveillance to document that based on science. We do not have it. Also, we have not imported any beef in this country since 1985 from Great Britain.

Oprah: Are we feeding cattle to the cattle?

Weber: There is a limited amount of that done in the United States ... (Audience reacts and sighs.) Hang on just a second now ... the Food and Drug Administration ...

Oprah: I have to just tell you that is alarming to me, that is alarming to me.

Weber: Now keep in mind that before you view the ruminant animal, the cow as simply vegetarian, remember that they drink milk. ...

Oprah: I know, but Dr. Weber, are you saying that we've been watching this for ten years, are you saying that every cow that's ever died, they've examined the reason why that cow died, before they ground that cow up and fed him to another cow?

Weber: No that's not what I'm saying, I'm saying we do not have the disease here, we've got ten years of data, the best scientists in the world who are looking for this, over 250 trained technicians and veterinarians around the country. Everyone's watching for this. Everyone would like to, in a way, want to find this if it is there because they want to protect our industry and of course the public.

Oprah: Dr. Will Hueston is with the United States Department of Agriculture. Dr. Hueston, do you think mad cow is a threat to U.S. cattle?

Hueston: I think it's an issue we need to be on top of at all times but there's no evidence at all that we have bovine spongiform encephalopathy in the United States. ...

Oprah: OK, I want to know why Howard, who used to be a cattle rancher, ... why are you now a vegetarian? What made you turn?

Lyman: Well, what I know about what is happening out there with cattle, like feeding cows to cows, I look at it and say that's a risk that I am unwilling to take. The same things that we've heard here today is exactly what was heard for ten years in England: "Not to worry, we're on top of this." You know, we've had a ban in the United States on feeding sheep to cows for a long time, but when they went out and looked, 25% of the renderers admitted that they were paying no attention to it. Voluntary bans do not work and if we continue to do what we're doing, feeding animals to animals, I believe we are going to be in exactly the same place because I've heard all of these things before in England: "We're on top of this, it's safe, we would not put the public at risk." They have put the public at risk.

Oprah: Yeah, of course they said that, yeah. Even Dr. Weber, you know that of course they said that, because what else are they going to say? What else are they going to say? Are they going to say, "Public, you are at risk, some of you may die and the cows are going to go crazy"? They couldn't say that.

Lyman: Ask yourself the question. Today we could do exactly what the English did and cease feeding cows to cows. Why in the world are we not doing that? Why are we skating around this and continuing to do it when everybody sitting here knows that would be the safest thing to do? Why is it, why is it? Because we have the greedy that are getting the ear of government instead of the needy and that's exactly why we're doing it. (Audience applause.)

Oprah: We have a lot of questions about this mad cow disease that we'd like to try to get resolved, because we don't want to just alarm you all, but I have to tell you, I'm thinking about the cattle being fed to the cattle and that's pretty upsetting to me. ...

Audience Member: I just had one question, I'm confused about why cattle are being fed lamb and why are they being fed beef?

Lyman: Well, what it comes down to is about half of the slaughter of animals is non-sellable to humans. They either have to pay to put it into the dump or they sell it for feed, so they grind it up, turn it into something that looks like brown sugar, add to it all of the animals that died unexpectedly, all of the road kills and the euthanized animals,. add it to them, grind it up and feed it back to other animals. It's about as simple as you can be. We are doing something to an animal that was never intended to be done. . . .

Audience Member: My question was, are the animals tested before they're ground ... all of the animals that are ground into feed that are fed to the cows?

Weber: There is no test other than analyzing the brains, and since we don't have animals with these symptoms, not every brain is going to be evaluated.

Oprah: OK, so the answer to your question is no.

Weber: Is no, that's correct. No animal can enter the plant that has any of these symptoms, by law. And there's veterinarians and ... inspection and it doesn't happen, Howard and you know it. It doesn't happen.

Lyman: Oh come on, let's get real! Any animal that is not staggering around goes in there. You know as well as I do. We have 100,000 cows per year that die. They take 2,700 brains out. Of those less than a hundred of them, they look for prions, they were looking for spongiform. We ended up feeding downer cows to mink, the mink came down with the disease, transferred it to animals, the animals came down with it, and you're sitting here telling everybody that it's safe. Not true.