Oprah opened the show with the Mad Cow segment. Viewers were told there were hidden dangers in food. This, viewers were told, is "the biggest health care crisis." In 1989, the US banned British beef because of Mad Cow Disease, which was called a "medi- cal mystery." It has been suspected that humans can get sick from eating diseased beef. The human form of the disease or a similar disease is the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, commonly referred to as CJD. Both Mad Cow Disease and CJD are "spongiform encelphalopthies." That means if you look at brains of dead victims, the brain is "sponge form," or tiny or microscopic holes are noted in the brain.

Symptoms of a human sick with CJD were described: Dementia or paralysis, losing weight, falling down, weak, tired, losing memory and going blind. Well, folks, as an aside, these same symptoms are found in people with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) or chemical poisoning. And MCS people who receive SPECT brain scans show pathological brain patterns.

Oprah Winfrey's audience was further told that 4.7 million older cows will be destroyed in Britain. The audience was asked: "Can it happen here?" They were further told than until a month ago, Brits had been told it couldn't happen in Britain!

There is no test for the disease (nor any known cure). Was it a British government cover up since 1993? Audiences were told that if Mad Cow Disease comes to the US it will be more devastating than AIDS. Howard Lyman, a rancher turned vegetarian, said "100,000 cows in the US die in the morning every year." That is, they are found dead in the morning. These cows are ground up and put into cattle feed. He asked: "Why are we feeding cows to cows?" Cows are by nature herbivores, i.e., they eat grass, not other animals. He said 14% of all cows are turned into feed and fed to other animals. Those are US Department of Agriculture (USDA) statistics.

The opposition said that it is not true that cows do not normally use animal protein. Calves drink milk. The opposition said we do not have BSE (Mad Cow Disease or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) in this country (US). We have not imported beef from Britain for ten years. Dr. Houston from the Department of Agriculture said there is no evidence that we have BSE here.

The audience of the Oprah Winfrey show appeared quite horrified at the cow cannibalism, and the idea that cows found dead were ground up and fed to other cows. The gentlemen who represented Agriculture had little to say and looked sad. The vegetarian rancher definitely dominated the discussion.

Beef sales in the US fell noticeably immediately following the Oprah Winfrey Show. A week or so later, according to Reuters out of Austin, Texas (4/25/96) Texas officials were considering taking legal action against Howard Lyman, whom they labeled a "vegetarian activist." "Agriculture Commissioner Rick Perry has asked Attorney General Dan Morales to take legal action against Howard Lyman for saying that Mad Cow Disease would `make AIDS look like the common cold' and that ranchers feed `roadkill' to cattle, a spokeswoman for the Texas Agriculture Department said on Thursday." The article said that cattle prices plummeted after the television show aired April 16. "We're not going to sit back and let trash TV trash a vital industry that provides nearly two million jobs to hardworking folks across this nation," Perry said in a statement.

A 1995 state law prohibits unfounded comments about perishable food items. Twelve other states have similar laws, passed to protect food producers from false information that frightens away consumers. These states were considering similar action against Lyman.

Because Oprah infuriated cattle producers, she ran a second show to placate them. I did not see the second show, but received a brief review written by someone who was not sympathetic to the cattle producers. He called it "a joke." Dr. Gary Weber from the Cattleman's Association was given a forum to dispel all our fears about BSE, uninterrupted. He assured us that we don't have the disease in this country, and in the next breath said we don't know why the cows got the disease. He also stated that meat by-products were better for calves than milk, and that they are good for the environment because we are recycling the animals instead of just throwing them away. Connie Greg, who's part of a cattle ranching family, was introduced in order that audiences could see that cattle ranchers are real people just like you and me.

The critic further said: "I think we should suggest a show that shows a bovine family. Show the playful calf being taken away from it's mother and fed those yummy meat by-products instead of it's own mother's milk. We have a right to know the facts, and Dr. Weber assuring us we have no problem here sounds an awful lot like what the British government has been telling the public the last 10 years."

================================================================ * From Blazing Tattles May 1996. Any email sent to Blazing Tattles in response to this article becomes the property of Blazing Tattles. For introductory issue of Blazing Tattles send SASE (or two air coupons non-US) to P.O. Box 1073, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

================================================================

In Don McAlvany's latest news letter 1-800-528-0559 he discusses the HUMAN FORM of MAD COW DISEASE. 15% of the deer and elk in the Rocky Mountains are infected and is spread as animals graze and defecate. It has spread to trout as the so-called whirling disease as well as zoo animals and cats. He says that the FDA is on the verge of banning blood donations from hunters (who presumably eat their prey). Field and Stream (February 2001) reported several hunters were exposed to mad cow by eating infected deer and died shortly after. People dying of CJD are being diagnosed as having Alzheimer's. This is why no human mad cow or CJD deaths are being reported in America.