May 4, 2004
Mad Cow Four Months Later
It's been over four months since a single cow in the United States was diagnosed with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. Despite the best efforts of animal rights and organic food scaremongers to terrify the public away from the conventional beef supply, American consumers remain unfazed. And considering that the risk of actually contracting mad cow disease is "as close to zero as you can get," our confidence is well justified.
The Center for Consumer Freedom told MSNBC yesterday: "If we want to keep feeding Americans affordable meat supplies, the system we have now is effective and safe and smart." And recently in National Review, Hudson Institute Fellow and commodity-market analyst Dave Juday provided another important reason why there's nothing to fear:
For context, consider that in the aftermath of the discovery of a cow infected with Mad Cow, an intense seven-week effort conducted by U.S. federal and state officials and Canadian food-safety officials identified more than 75,000 animals who could have been associated with the infected cow's birth herd in Canada. That led to 189 distinct investigations on 51 farms in three states, which further led to 255 suspected at-risk animals, all of which were destroyed, and all of whom tested negative for BSE.
