Agriculture

The Denver Post reports that "Sixty-three elk exposed to chronic wasting disease (CWD) at a Del Norte ranch were exported to at least five states and three other Colorado ranches... Chronic wasting disease is ... related to mad cow disease. Unlike that disease, it has not been shown to infect humans." That's one spin to put on this issue, but the fact is that there is also no proof that CWD cannot infect humans, and laboratory evidence indicates that it might.

MeatingPlace.com, which describes itself as "the premiere information provider for the red meat and poultry industries," reports that "An Oct. 3 'Success Breakfast,' sponsored by the College of Southern Idaho and the Twin Falls, Idaho, Chamber of Commerce and featuring activist Jeremy Rifkin, has been cancelled after officials became worried he might make negative comments about beef and milk, according to The Associated Press.

A panel of former government officials, food industry executives and a consumer advocate Friday called on the U.S. government to increase funding for agencies fighting to keep bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow from entering this country. During the BSE Symposium, held in Washington D.C. and sponsored by Edelman Public Relations, former U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, now a partner at the DC-based law firm, Akin, Gump, said the U.S.

PR Watch staffers Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber wrote Mad Cow USA in 1997. This report by the chemical industry's official publication does a very good job of updating developments since then. "Has the U.S. government taken sufficient measures to keep it from infecting humans?" asks reporter Bette Hileman. "For years after BSE first appeared in Britain, authorities believed the disease would not spread beyond the U.K. They also believed it would not jump species to infect humans. ... They were wrong.