Mad Cow USA

by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber

Now in Paperback with a new foreword by the authors

Publisher: Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine
ISBN 1-56751-110-4
Bookstore price: $17.95 U.S.

Ask for it in your local bookstore or order it directly. To order by mail, send $20/book (includes postage & handling) to: CMD, 520 University Avenue, Suite 227, Madison, WI 53703.

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• About the Authors
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Before there was Fast Food Nation, there was Mad Cow USA. Those who read this book when it first appeared in 1997 were shocked but not surprised on December 23, 2003, when the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture announced that mad cow disease had been found in America. Six years earlier, Stauber and Rampton warned in Mad Cow USA that government and industry in the US had failed to take the necessary steps to prevent this bizarre and deadly dementia disease from spreading through contaminated feed into livestock and humans. The feeding of rendered slaughterhouse waste to livestock, which spreads mad cow disease and created an epidemic in England, continues to be both legal and widespread in the United States. Dairy calves are literally weaned on cattle blood protein in calf milk formula, while government and industry feed the American public a dangerous diet of outright lies, false assurances and deceptive PR.

WHAT REVIEWERS ARE SAYING

"Most accessible and informative… a lively account… The language is clear and straightforward… Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber tell this larger tale with style, aided by accounts of some richly colourful characters… Their exhaustive exploration of the people, the ideas and the growing understanding of TSEs is thought-provoking… dancing prose."
--New Scientist, April 4, 1998

"Will be received with interest by a large number of readers of different backgrounds and perspectives."
--Journal of the American Medical Association, June 24, 1998

"The kind of book you can't put down. It tells with great clarity a complicated story that interweaves intrigue, horror, massive economic interests, cannibalism, death, and some rather curious science… [The authors] have done the legwork and research necessary to produce a solid accounting of the affliction of mad cow disease, the mess that was made of handling it in Britain, and its implications for the US… required reading."
--Chemical & Engineering News, April 20, 1998

"In a first-rate piece of investigative journalism, Rampton and Stauber piece together the best synthesis of the problem I've seen. Mad Cow USA is an important book. And it reads like a detective story."
--Timothy B. McCall, M.D., author of Examining Your Doctor: A Patient's Guide to Avoiding Harmful Medical Care

"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, radio talk show host and author of There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos

"Gripping… important… highly recommended."
--Library Journal

"No one who has read Mad Cow USA was the least bit surprised by the discovery of an American cow with BSE."
--Michael Pollan, author of Botany of Desire

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Foreword

SECTION ONE: The Burden of Proof

1. The Girl Who Wouldn't Go Away
2. Food Fight

SECTION TWO: The Thing That Eats Your Brain

1. First Tremors
2. Kuru
3. The Virus That Wasn't There

SECTION THREE: The Interests of Industry

1. Cannibal Meat
2. Acceptable Risks

SECTION FOUR: Danger Signs

1. Outbreak in America's Dairyland
2. Mad Cows and Englishmen

SECTION FIVE: Crisis Containment

1. Scrapie, American-Style
2. Bent Proteins
3. Worst-Case Scenario
4. One Bad Apple
5. We See Nothing
6. Counting Sheep

SECTION SIX: Meltdown

1. Apocalypse Cow
2. Who Will Tell the People?
3. Feeding Frenzy

SECTION SEVEN: Reckoning

1. Truth and Consequences
2. Could the Nightmare Happen Here?

Glossary of Terms

Notes

Index