Opinion: BSE fears are BS

Opinion piece from PRWeb.  



Washington, DC (PRWEB) March 7, 2004 -- U.S. consumers are known for their 
affection for food, so it’s a wonder most Americans are responding so calmly 
to reports of mad cow disease discovered in a single animal in Washington 
State. That’s good news, because clear thinking lends itself to better 
decision-making. What’s not surprising, however, are attempts by activists and 
special interest groups of all kinds to scare consumers into making irrational 
choices.

Ours is a safe, healthy and prosperous world, and we appropriately put a lot 
of effort into stamping out threats to our health and well being. 
Unfortunately, we’re sometimes misled by groups that create and perpetuate 
groundless health scares to make a living: ambulance-chasing trial lawyers, 
anti-technology organizations, and some holistic food companies selling 
solutions to problems that don’t exist. All these groups have seized on mad 
cow disease (called Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE) as their next 
opportunity to make a buck.

The typical formula these activists employ is to trump up some bogus health 
claim, scare consumers into demanding new government rules, and rake in cash 
by taking advantage of the hysteria they caused. In this case, radical groups 
like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals hope to scare consumers away 
from meat and promote their vegetarian agenda. Next are a few unscrupulous 
organic food advocates, such as the Organic Consumers Association, who want to 
create a bigger niche for their products by vilifying the conventional food 
industry. And a number of trial lawyers have recently been seen trolling for 
business among people who are “concerned about contracting” the disease. Their 
motto: Afraid you might get sick? Call a lawyer.

What these groups haven’t counted on is that the truth is actually being heard 
and, so far, Americans are responding appropriately. Although, in the 19 years 
since BSE was discovered, more than 150 people in Europe and the UK have been 
diagnosed with the human form of the disease after eating beef products 
contaminated with central nervous system tissue from infected cattle, not a 
single person has ever gotten it from eating meat in the United States. Eating 
organic isn’t necessarily safer either. In England, the epicenter of the mad 
cow problem, BSE was found in both conventional and organic herds, so organic 
marketing claims linked to food safety and health are irresponsible and 
mislead consumers and farmers alike.

The only known way to prevent the spread of mad cow is by following certain 
basic animal feeding practices, which are already enforced by US regulations 
and are standard operating procedure among North American cattle ranchers. 
Additional rules issued since the discovery of that one sick cow in Washington 
make the safest system in the world even safer.

Look closely at this story, and you won’t find any good reasons for the kind 
of radical changes in regulatory policy the activists are demanding. What you 
will find is evidence that more regulation is not necessarily better. Imposing 
rules that have no basis in science just to make us feel better would, 
however, be highly costly for consumers and producers – raising food prices, 
limiting the availability of certain foods, and straining wallets across the 
country.

European countries failed to take the early and aggressive preventive steps 
the United States began putting in place in 1989. As a result, no one, least 
of all European officials, should have been surprised when a BSE epidemic hit. 
However, Europe’s hysterical response to the outbreak of mad cow cost 
taxpayers billions of dollars and resulted in the virtual collapse of the 
British beef industry. But the real loss was far more than money. 

Because regulators abandoned common sense, consumers lost confidence in the 
government’s ability to protect the food chain, and European producers lost 
the ability to make science-based decisions. Authority to protect the European 
food supply was taken from qualified doctors and scientists and put in the 
hands of politicians who set rules on the basis of opinion polls and activist 
group press releases. It would be a tragic mistake if we were to allow that to 
happen here.

American consumers enjoy the safest food supply in the world because we 
understand how science, technology and competitive regulation can be used to 
improve our health and well being. Before capitulating to broad new 
regulations that could actually make use worse off, not better, we’d all be 
wise to ask, “Where’s the beef?”

-- Gregory Conko is a Senior Fellow and Director of Food Safety Policy with 
the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, DC-based public interest 
group, where he specializes in issues of food and pharmaceutical drug safety 
regulation, and on the general treatment of health risks in public policy. 

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