AP's Mad Cow Reporting: Bad Then, Bad History Now

As we explain in our book Mad Cow USA, on June 3, 1997, the Associated Press circulated an outrageously inaccurate story claiming falsely that the Food and Drug Administration had "banned the use of virtually all slaughtered-animal parts in US livestock feed." Well, it's deja vu all over again, as this false and misleading AP story was featured today, five years later, in an AP column titled 'Today in History.' In reality, the FDA regulations have allowed the continuing feeding of billions of pounds a year of slaughter house waste to livestock. As Consumers Union pointed out five years ago, "the FDA has left the door open for a mad cow-like disease to circulate in the United States. ... The epidemic in the UK involved ten years of bureaucrats ignoring the warnings of scientists and underestimating the seriousness of the risks. The FDA seems bent on repeating those mistakes." Of course with such lousy reporting and bad history lessons from the Associated Press, who would ever know?