The issue of Newsweek to hit the stands today features a cover story on mad cow disease. ABC’s 20/20 also ran a feature segment about mad cow on Friday night, asking the pointed question: “Can it Happen Here?” We’ve been telling you about this overhyped American non-problem and, as we predicted, the media’s big guns are getting into the picture.
The Newsweek story indulges in 4,000 words of doom and gloom before conceding: “Even in Europe, where a dozen countries have lost cattle to mad-cow disease, the odds of contracting [the disease] from a serving of beef are remote.” The 20/20 segment included commentary by Michael Hansen of Consumers Union. As we’ve described in our recently-released report on the mad cow scare, Hansen is an anti-meat, anti-agribusiness activist who is trying his hardest to convince Americans that home-grown mad cows are just around the corner.
