Mad Cow Disease

News

Media Coverage of Mad Cow: USDA Calls "Misleading," Columbia Journalism Review Calls "Sane"

by Rebekah Wilce — May 14, 2012 - 9:21am
  • Topics: Mad Cow Disease, Food Safety, Journalism
  • Projects: Food Rights Network

    • A downer cow at a California dairy was recently found to be infected with an "atypical" strain of "bovine spongiform encephalopathy" (BSE), or "mad cow" disease. There has been some significant media coverage of the case, and the USDA wants the media to know they are not pleased.

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) press secretary, Courtney Rowe, issued a memo saying there were an, "unfortunate amount of misleading articles meant for our public."

    Guest Contributor

    America's Mad Cow Crisis

    by John Stauber — April 27, 2012 - 10:31am
  • Topics: Mad Cow Disease
  • Projects: Food Rights Network

    • Americans might remember that when the first mad cow was confirmed in the United States in December, 2003, it was major news. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had been petitioned for years by lawyers from farm and consumer groups I worked with to stop the cannibal feeding practices that transmit this horrible, always fatal, human and animal dementia. When the first cow was found in Washington state, the government said it would stop such feeding, and the media went away. But once the cameras were off and the reporters were gone nothing substantial changed.

    Mad Cows Coming Home to Roost

    by Judith Siers-Poisson — May 7, 2008 - 3:48pm

    The global increase in grain prices may make the meat supply less safe. The European Union is considering a relaxation of feed bans that prohibit animal by-products being used as feed for other animals in the human food chain.

    Main Source: 
    The Guardian (UK), May 4, 2008

    Industry Encourages More Regulation, USDA Declines

    by Judith Siers-Poisson — May 2, 2008 - 3:04pm

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been criticized for not totally banning "downer" cows -- animals "too sick or hurt to stand for slaughter" -- from the food supply.

    Main Source: 
    Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA), April 29, 2008

    Mad Cow USA - The Coverup Continues in Washington

    by John Stauber — May 29, 2007 - 3:50pm

    The Associated Press notes that the Bush administration "will fight to keep meatpackers from testing all their animals for mad cow disease. The Agriculture Department tests fewer than 1 percent of slaughtered cows for the disease, which can be fatal to humans who eat tainted beef. A beef producer in the western state of Kansas, Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wants to test all of its cows," but the US government has said such private testing is illegal. "U.S.

    Main Source: 
    Associated Press, May 29, 2007

    US "Atypical" Mad Cow Threat Was Predicted

    by John Stauber — June 14, 2006 - 10:33am
  • Topics: Mad Cow Disease, Food Safety, Agriculture, Science

    • The small scientific world of prion researchers -- the scientists who investigate "transmissible spongiform encephalopathies" (TSE) such as mad cow disease in cattle and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans -- is abuzz. That's because the two confirmed cases of US mad cow disease in Texas and Alabama are an "atypical" strain different from the British strain but identical to an atypical strain found so far in a small number of cattle in France, Germany, Poland and Sweden. The discovery of "atypical" mad cow disease in the US should not be surprising. Sheldon Rampton and I reported way back in 1997 that very strong evidence of an "atypical" TSE disease infecting US cattle was established by the work of Dr. Richard Marsh, the researcher to whom we dedicated our book Mad Cow USA.

    Mad Cows and Mad Policies

    by Diane Farsetta — March 15, 2006 - 11:27am

    CMD and Organic Consumers Association at a June 2005 USDA meeting

    "Despite the confirmation of a third case of mad cow disease" in the United States, the Department of Agriculture (USDA) "intends to s

    Main Source: 
    Associated Press, March 14, 2006

    The Cows Have Come Home

    by Diane Farsetta — September 7, 2005 - 10:25am
  • Topics: Mad Cow Disease, Corporations

    • Note: This article was written for CorpWatch, and also appears on their website.

    Earlier this summer in Minnesota, the well-dressed woman walked briskly across the front of the red brick classroom and up to the microphone. The moderator smiled and nodded in her direction. Looking down at her notes, she began. "Good afternoon. Thanks for holding this session. And while we are here in this room discussing this important issue, 200 people in Gering, Nebraska, are looking for new jobs. Their packing plant closed this week because they could not source enough cattle due to the embargo."

    The AMI's Janet Riley, with black wristband

    Janet Riley, the senior vice-president of public affairs for the American Meat Institute (AMI), was referring to a plant owned by Packerland Packing, a subsidiary of Wisconsin-based Smithfield. The Gering plant processed roughly 320 cattle a day, turning the cows into boxed beef products. But following the May 2003 discovery of mad cow disease across the border in Alberta, a legal challenge by Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund (a small Montana-based advocacy group) caused the United States to impose a ban on Canadian cattle imports, effectively cutting off supplies to the Nebraska plant.

    Speaking more slowly, Riley stressed: "Gering is not the first plant, and it won't be the last." She continued, "And that's why I and so many others in this room" - here she lifted one arm over her head and pumped it in the air defiantly - "are wearing these black wristbands, because they are the color of mourning. ... And that's exactly how we feel about our industry. What's happening is tragic."

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