Cattlemen vs. Howard Lyman and Oprah Winfrey

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Background – Rose In the early 1996, a new variant of Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease (CJD) was diagnosed in Britain. This disease affects the human brain. Scientist linked this disease to the consumption of beef infected with Mad Cow Disease. This disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord. During this time, the beef industry was under great scrutiny from the media and consumers about how it conducted its everyday business. This news led to large media coverage on the topic of mad cow disease which was also a special on the Oprah Winfrey Show in 1996. The amount of publicity given to this issue was mainly caused by the great size of the beef industry. To understand the scope of the beef industry, according to the United States Department of Agriculture, total beef consumption in 2002 was 27.9 billion pounds. Moreover, the retail equivalent value of the U.S. beef industry was 60 billion dollars. As one can see, the beef industry was a very profitable industry with great influence and consumption. Therefore, when news broke in Britain that people were getting sick by consuming contaminated beef, many people were concerned. This topic became popular world-wide, the panic of consuming beef in Britain became the headlines of media in the United States. The popular T.V. show of Winfrey Oprah also wanted to talk about this subject. On April 11th 1996, the episode “Dangerous Food” was tapped in Chicago, Illinois. Oprah has taken on the beef industry, saying she would stop eating hamburgers because of fears over mad cow disease. This was very shocking to her after Howard Lyman said that meat and bone meal made from cattle was routinely fed to other cattle to boost their meat and milk production. Moreover, spokesmen for the beef industry attended and appeared on the “Dangerous Food” episode, but due

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