DATE=01-31-01

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=MAD COW ILLNESS IN EUROPE PROMPS U-S FEARS

NUMBER=6-12181

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=Washington

INTERNET=YES

EDITOR=Assignments

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: For weeks, European cattle farmers have been battling a new outbreak of so-called "Mad Cow" disease, which decimated British herds years ago. The illness is apparently passed to healthy cattle when they eat feed containing ground up remains of infected animals, a practice that has now been banned in many European countries.

Mysteriously, the illness, which causes progressive neuromuscular weakness and then death in cattle, has in a few cases been passed to humans. In the latest outbreak, several people have died from the human equivalent, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. During the 1990s outbreak in Britain, more than 80 people died after eating infected beef.

The U-S press has been watching all of this with some apprehension, and contemplating the difficulties of keeping this illness from American cattle. We get a sampling now from ____________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: European agriculture ministers met this week to discuss the spread of the Mad Cow disease and try to figure out new ways to stop it. They have agreed to stop any part of a cow's spinal column from entering the human food chain. Reports from the Brussels session say that may well mean a ban on such popular cuts of beef as T-bone and rib-eye steaks.

Across the Atlantic The Philadelphia [Pennsylvania] Inquirer views the situation this way:

VOICE: To Americans, mad cow disease may seem like a quirky British bovine disorder that should worry only those who travel across The Pond [Atlantic Ocean]. In fact, as deadly bovine spongiform encephalopathy disease spreads across Western Europe, and as more humans die, it is becoming clear Americans must now regard it as a potential invader threatening U-S shores.

Since surfacing in Britain in 1986, mad cow disease has infected more than 176-thousand cattle. It is now in Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Italy. ... How lucky that America has no known cases of mad cow. It can't go on relying on luck.

TEXT: In the Midwest, the heart of the United States' cattle and agricultural belt, the concern is even greater, as this editorial in the Saint Louis [Missouri] Post-Dispatch notes:

VOICE: ... on our ever-shrinking planet, the idea of mad cow disease in the United States isn't as far-fetched as some might like to believe. There already have been clusters of Crutzfeld-Jakob disease associated with eating meat. As a result, federal officials in 1996 warned against eating certain kinds of squirrel meat. Right now, a similar infection threat exists in northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming, where nearly one-in-five wild deer and elk have a related illness called chronic wasting disease. Since symptoms can take 10 or 15 years to appear, some hunters already may have become infected.

... Most experts say the odds of Americans eating tainted beef are very low. But what were the odds that in the year two-thousand, New Yorkers would get sick from West Nile virus?

TEXT: Turning to the Midwestern newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, there is more concern because the paper says existing U-S regulations are apparently not being followed.

VOICE: Mad-cow disease is real and has Europe in fits. Now it's becoming clear the F-D-A has been lax in protecting consumers from the spread of the disease to this side of the Atlantic. The F-D-A passed rules in 1997 that banned cattle feed made from rendered animals, but these rules have been ineffectively enforced. It is precisely this kind of feed that allowed the spread of mad-cow diseasebovine spongiform encephalopathy and its human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob diseasethroughout Europe. ... There hasn't been a single human or cattle death here linked to it. But the F-D-A and other federal agencies must make sure that tainted products from Europe are kept out, must increase inspections of infected animals here and adopt stepslike the recent donor bans ...to prevent contamination of human blood and tissues.

TEXT: Taking a much more optimistic outlook is The Chattanooga Times and Free Press, a jointly published daily in Tennessee, which ran this column recently.

VOICE: So far, the United States has been blessedly free of mad cow disease. That's no accident. Regulatory agencies and the beef industry in the United States have taken active roles in creating and enforcing policies to safeguard the nation's food supply. As a result, there is no mad cow crisis in the United States. The rules and regulations in place seem adequate to the task of protecting the public for now. But continued vigilance and adherence to strict standards are all that stand between the American public and the calamitous arrival of an insidious disease on our shores.

TEXT: And lastly, from Rhode Island's capital, The Providence Journal exclaims:

VOICE: When mad-cow disease was first discovered in Britain, justifiable widespread panic led to a massive slaughter in hopes that the disease would be contained. As mad-cow disease made its way across Europe, it was obvious that eliminating the British herd did not stop the spread. The fact is that the disease has spread all over Europe. That stark lesson cannot be ignored in this country. We suspect that more and more Americans will be approaching their hamburgers with trepidation. Not surprisingly, McDonald's Corporation reported ...[recently] that its profits fell for the first time in years. It blamed Europe's mad-cow scare for the decline.

TEXT: With that comment from The Providence, Rhode Island, Journal, we conclude this sampling of U-S press reaction to the current spread of mad cow disease across Europe.

ANG/NEB/FC