Paul Holmes, long time journalist covering the PR industry for his own trade press publications, blasts the arrogance and stupidity of the US beef industry and its protectors in the government, over the emergence of mad cow disease in the US. Holmes writest that "more than a decade has passed since an epidemic of bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, better known as mad cow disease, ravaged British beef
and dairy herds, so it's fair to say American cattlemen have had
every opportunity to study that outbreak and learn from it. Yet to
say the industry failed to learn would be an understatement. It's
almost as if American cattlemen looked at the catastrophic events in
the U.K. and decided to ignore every lesson while duplicating-and if
possible exacerbating-every mistake."