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FDA MAD COW RULES ARE 'DECEPTIVE, INADEQUATE'

For your info - P. Dines

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LINK: Ag, organic, toxics

From: INTERNET:dbriars@world.std.com, INTERNET:dbriars@world.std.com
Sender: owner-imap@CHUMBLY.MATH.MISSOURI.EDU
To: Patricia Dines, 73652,1202
Date: Fri, Jun 6, 1997, 4:23 PM
Subject: FDA MAD COW RULES ARE 'DECEPTIVE, INADEQUATE'

Date: 04 Jun 97 12:50:19 EDT
From: John Stauber <74250.735@CompuServe.COM>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
John Stauber, Sheldon Rampton:  608-233-3346

FDA 'Mad Cow' Rules Called "Deceptive, Inadequate"

(Madison, WI 6/4/97)    Food and Drug Administration rules to prevent a US
version of mad cow disease are "deceptive, inadequate, and too little, too
late," say Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, authors of the forthcoming
book
Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?

        British mad cow disease is the likely cause of a deadly human
dementia,
'new variant CJD,'  that is killing young victims who ate contaminated meat
in
the 1980s. The feeding of cows to cows apparently spread the disease which
then
entered the human food chain.  Britain banned the cannibal feeding practice
nine years ago, but it has continued extensively in the United States.

        "Evidence suggests there may already be a mad-cow-type of disease
infecting both US pigs and cattle.  The FDA should impose a total ban on
feeding all mammalian protein to food animals as in Britain; anything less
is
inadequate.  The new FDA rule still allows billions of pounds of rendered
animal waste to be fed to livestock, including feeding pigs to pigs, cattle
to
pigs, pigs to cattle, and chickens to chickens," says Sheldon Rampton.

        "The FDA rule is almost a decade late and still not strict enough
to
protect the U.S. from a deadly dementia that could spread from infected
meat to
consumers.  Mad cow disease in cattle and CJD in humans are like an
infectious
Alzheimer's. These mysterious killers are called transmissible spongiform
encephalopathies, or TSEs, because the brains of victims are riddled with
holes. They sit latent and undetectable for years and even decades in
people
before invariably killing.  There is no cure, but TSEs can be prevented.
Unfortunately, the FDA's rule is too little and too late," warns John
Stauber.

        Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber write and edit the investigative
quarterly  PR Watch.    They are co-authors of the acclaimed book  Toxic
Sludge
Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry,  now in
its
third printing from Common Courage Press.

The Center for Media & Democracy website is:    http://www.prwatch.org/

Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?
To  be released Fall, 1997.  Hardcover, 240 pages, $24.95.    ISBN
1-56751-111-2.
Common Courage Press 207-525-0900

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