Dan Murphy, webmaster of meatingplace.com [3], blusters on today about how the General Accounting Office's warning that the US government is failing to adequately prevent an outbreak of British mad cow disease is "a bunch of BS." [4] Says Murphy, "Could it happen here? ... It's possible. And it's also possible that a trainload of lagered-up losers could pull into Columbus, Ohio, the day before a Major League Soccer 'death match' between the Crew and the LA Galaxy and tear up the town during a night of wanton rioting." Ironically, Murphy's rant appears the day after newspapers announced that chronic wasting disease, a mad cow-type disease being spread across North America by deer and elk game farms, has been found for the first time east of the Mississippi [5] in wild Wisconsin white tailed deer [6]. Despite the meat industry's loud denials, the growing threat of mad cow-type diseases in the US is real [7]. For more info on mad cow-type diseases,our 1997 book Mad Cow USA is available free on-line as a PDF download [8].