|
|
Article: Burning stakes: beef crisis. (British agricultural secretary Douglas Hogg proposes modest measures to eliminate beef cattle infected with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- April 20, 1996
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
HERE is a horror story, set in Britain in the early years of the next century. The BSE crisis of 1996 had been forgotten when several cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) were discovered in the neighbourhood of a power station. One local remembers the government's decision, during the crisis, that cows over 30 months killed at the end of their working life should be burnt in power stations.
Are air-borne prions the cause of the outbreak? Ministers, backed by scientists, rush to assure the public that they are not, but to no avail: people remember earlier assurances later declared inoperative. There is a run on oxygen cylinders. The government is forced to close ...