AR-News: U.S. policy on mad cow in question

[jim robertson]

U.S. policy on mad cow in question
The agriculture secretary mischaracterized a study on the risk of the 
disease entering the country
Monday, May 03, 2004
JIM BARNETT
WASHINGTON -- Two years before she confirmed the first U.S. case of mad cow 
disease, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman assured concerned consumers that 
her agency had halted the infection at the nation's borders.


Evidence, she told news reporters Nov. 30, 2001, came from a study by the 
Harvard Center for Risk Analysis showing the risk of mad cow, or BSE, 
entering the country was "extremely low." Her assertions became the 
foundation of major USDA decisions dealing with mad cow.

But the agency-sponsored study did not assess efforts to keep the disease 
out of the United States as Veneman said, The Oregonian has found. 
Researchers with the Harvard center, part of the university's School of 
Public Health, had spent two years trying to measure the risk that mad cow 
might enter the United States before concluding they could not.

full story:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/108358536383690.xml


"One of the most dangerous things that can happen to a child is to kill or 
torture an animal and get away with it" —  Margaret Mead.

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