"When Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman met a House panel last week to defend her response to mad cow disease, she cited a Harvard University study concluding the risk to public health is minimal. ... The Harvard study, released two years ago, has become a universal defense for Bush administration officials as they have responded to the first cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Canada and then in the United States.

"Last year the Bush Administration encouraged American chemical companies to lobby against European efforts to strengthen the regulation of thousands of chemicals contained in household, industrial and personal products," BushGreenWash.org writes. "When the chemical industry was slow to respond, Administration officials took it upon themselves to launch 'an unusually aggressive campaign' to pressure the European Union into watering down its comprehensive reform efforts. Documents uncovered by the Environmental Health Fund, using the Freedom of Information Act, showed the U.S.

Corporate-funded think tanks and food industry front groups are rushing into the debate over mad cow disease. This Wednesday, January 28th, the George C.