Afterword: The Meaning of Mad Cow Summary and Analysis

When the first edition of this book was published, European governments were just preparing to slaughter huge numbers of cattle possibly infected with mad cow disease. The very next month, England had to burn sheep and cattle because of foot-and-mouth disease. These scares awakened the public throughout the world, a public that now began to worry about the safety of its own meat consumption. Actually, in 1996, the FDA had addressed the issue of mad cow disease prevention by prohibiting the inclusion of some animal proteins in cattle feed. Scientists know that the disease is spread to cattle by their consumption of the remains of other infected animals and believe that the disease could certainly pass to humans through consumption of that cattle. So elaborate rules were established. Cattle could be fed...