Mad Cow Disease: Family Farmers, Cattle and Consumers
are Victims of Corporate Greed in a Runaway Food System
Since finding an animal infected with mad cow (formal name- bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) in the United States,
the National Family Farm Coalition (NFFC), has been issuing calls for major changes in the nation's food and farm policy that
can restore confidence in the nation's food supply.
"Family
farmers and ranchers will be unfairly hurt by this news, that's
for sure," stated George Naylor, president of NFFC,
and member of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, "but
this is only the latest example of how our corporate dominated
food system sacrifices the needs of family farmers and consumers
to the corporate demand for cheaper and cheaper farm products."
Mad cow disease was first identified in Great Britain in 1986. The disease is spread amound cattle when their feed contains infectious meat and bone meal such as brain and spinal cord from other animals, which is common pratice in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).
Eight cases of mad cow disease have been confirmed in North American cattle to date (June 2006).
The human form of the disease is called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), which causes the nervous system and brain to waste away.
Read entire press release
Letter to
Congress on animal identification (April 2004)
