Mad Cow Disease: A Case Study

Statement of problem

Mad Cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a transmissible disease in cattle, which may be spread to humans through slaughtered meat. It attacks the brain and causes a change in behavior, dementia, and eventually death. This is called the Crutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) (WebMD, n.d.). With confirmed Mad Cow disease, it is necessary to destroy (burn) all animals that may have been near the infection, the disease is marked by rapdid mental deterioration, usually within a few months, and most people laps into a coma. This disease is not curable, however, treatments focus on keeping the person as comfortable and healthy as possible.

How it developed

How the disease first occurred is not certain.

However, the first discovery of Mad Cow disease was in the United Kingdom in the 1980´s. The British government and scientific experts were unsure that meat and the other products from cattle infected with BSE were no risk to humans (Powell & Leiss, 1997). However, in 1995 three British citizens were diagnosed with the first human cases of the disease called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), which is a rare, progressive, and an unchanging fatal brain disorder (Ropeik & Gray, 2002, p. 117). Even though new cases of CJD emerged, the British government refused to announce the possible link between the human disease and BSE. The government assistant chief veterinary Kevin Taylor, went publicly and dismissed the notion of a link between Mad Cow disease and CJD (Walters, 2003). Even though the government denied this connection, other doctors and scientific expert, were still researching and writing reports regarding the link between consumption of infected bovine material and CJD (Walters, 2003).
Researches believe that the infectious agents that caused Mad Cow disease were an abnormal version of a protein which was normally found on a cell´s surface, called a prion in cattle. However, for reasons still unknown, this protein became different and destroyed the nervous system tissue, meaning the brain and spinal cord. The disease is not broken down in the body and accumulate in the central nervous system. It takes a long time, usually between four and seven years of a cattle exposed to infectious agent until the disease develops. After the first cases were detected in Britain in 1986, it proved that the spread of the disease occurred when the animals ingested feed containing meat and bone produced from dead ruminant species that had the disease (Nunez, 2015).
Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication
In this case, the crisis and emergency risk communication was evident, since it is an approach to communicating effectively during emergencies.

These principles are used by public health professionals and public information officers to provide information that helps individuals, stakeholders, and entire communities make the best possible decisions for themselves and their loved ones (Emergency, 2015).

There are a number of ways risk communication occurs, however, experts often deliver risks, especially health risks, to the general public through media. So through various media outlets, government agencies and personnel, experts, and journalist are able to provide information to the general public about the nature of risks. The definition of risk communication is the process of exchanges about how best to assess and manage risks among academics, regulatory practitioners, interest groups, and in this case scenario, the general public (Powell & Leiss, 1997, p. 33).

As more cows in the UK and across Europe were discovered to be infected, and that they had to be destroyed, Mad Cow issue appeared in the news in the United States and around the world. In order to make the issue of Mad Cow disease more dramatic and an issue of importance to Americans, the media placed Mad Cow disease as a possible threat to the U.S. beef supply. Some media outlets such as Newsweek wrote, “BSE has crossed the ocean and is now into our markets and

homes”.
Newsweek’s March 12, 2001, cover was explicit: “The Slow Deadly Spread of Mad Cow Disease”, “How It Could Become an Epidemic’ and ‘Caution, Do Not Eat Meat!” Everything about the article, especially the photos, was meant to influence readers that Mad Cow disease was here among us, even though it was not proven (Benarde, 2002).

Newsweek and other media outlets worked hard to spread fear for this disease across the country, dramatized the issue in the hope of attracting more readers, even though there were no reason to believe that Americans were at any serious risk. Although the U.S. media had already delivered a huge among of coverage of Mad Cow disease as the European epidemic disclosed, once the U.S. discovered its own case of BSE, Mad Cow disease was essentially old news. Few topics are able to remain interesting and newsworthy for long periods of time. Even catastrophes such as hurricanes or floods only capture the attention of audiences for a brief

period.
When the first case of BSE appeared in the U.S., the only interesting aspects of the U.S. case were the question of whether beef consumers in the U.S. were safe and who to blame. Many of the U.S. news articles expressed the efforts the government did to maintain food safety, health, and of the minimal risk posed by the Washington case of BSE. There were headlines that provided Americans with reassurance in their food supply such as “U.S. Issues Safety Rules to Protect Food Against Mad Cow Disease”, “Pilot Animal ID Program Will Track Livestock”, and “USDA Plans Mad Cow Tests Nationwide”. However, the media ignored the preventative measures of government agencies when mad cow disease was an European issue, but when it became a U.S. issue, the media changed focus completely, most likely out of fear of alienating or aggravating the big U.S. beef industry (Soley, 2002).
An example of communication issue and fear of the big U.S. beef industry was an Oprah Winfrey episode, which was titled “Dangerous Food”. Here she discussed issues surrounding mad cow disease and declared to her viewers that she would no longer eat hamburgers. Right after this episode, Texas cattlemen’s filed suit against Winfrey under Texas’ perishable food disparagement law (Soley, 2002).
Another example regarding the use of this law was when after 60 Minutes ran a segment titled, “ ‘A’ is for Apple” in 1989. Uniroyal Inc., which is the producer of a chemical called daminozide, a chemical that is sprayed on red apples to keep the apples on the trees longer, and which increased their size and color and also improves storage life. There were laboratory studies that had shown that this chemical potent carcinogen was actually absorbed into the apples and therefore could not be washed off by canners, bottlers, or consumers. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was totally aware that daminozide produced cancer in laboratory test animals, however they were unwilling to recall the chemical because it was already on the market and was widely used by apple growers, who also claimed that forbidding daminozide would damage them financially (Soley, 2002, p. 111). So in conclusion, it seemed more important to the EPA to protect the financial status of apple growers than the health of apple consumers in the United States.