ARE AMERICANS SAFE FROM MAD COW?
In the last two weeks, U.S. media have begun to highlight the mad cow scare in Europe with prominent stories in newspapers and on television, including a feature on ABC TV’s leading evening news program that asked: “Are Americans Safe From Mad Cow?” The answer to that question, according to government and industry, is yes. But food safety advocates are not so sure. “The government agencies say they have erected this firewall (against mad cow). We don’t have a firewall. It’s more like a white picket fence,” said Michael Hansen, a research associate with the Consumers Union in Washington. The United States has not imported any meat or bone meal from Britain for a decade, which U.S. officials said was an important move to prevent the disease crossing the Atlantic. It also has banned imports of meat from Europe. But critics such as Hansen said the possibility exists of a home-grown variety of mad cow disease. At least two maladies of the same general family as mad cow are present in the Un
