Mad Cow Disease in the United States :: MCD mad Cow disease US Essays

In March of 1996 the British holler sedulousness was dealt an incredible blow when a europiuman Union commission obligate a worldwide ban on the export of UK holler. The ban was compel after an bam of mad cow disease (MCD) in Britain. MCD is the laymen depot for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), a disease that leads to deterioration of the brain tissue in beef and dairy cattle. It is the hypothesized link between MCD and Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD), the equivalent condition in humans, which led to the imposition of the export ban on British beef. This ban effectively crippled the UK beef export marketplace in addition to sending a shock throughout Europe tinting beef safety. News of this ban spread throughout the world limning images of infected cattle stumbling and falling unable to maintain their balance. While the scientific community was, at the time, unsure of the nature of the link between MCD and CJD, if any, the effects of the outbreak may have been mu ch further reaching than Europe.It is debatable that conglutination America was also impacted to some extent, whether long bourne or short, by the MCD scares. In the days that followed the ban on UK beef, beef futures in Chicago fluctuated as traders were torn between two economic forces. The first was the expected increase in demand. Markets formerly serviced by UK beef must now be filled with beef from other countries. The consequence impact deals with the adverse effects the outbreak could have on consumer demand. North American consumers were also exposed to a great deal of media propaganda as most, if not all, North American newspapers and television news broadcasts, national and local, carried stories of the outbreak and the horrific consequences of CJD. If concerns of food safety in the unite States and Canada were never of concern there would have been no need for the United States Department of market-gardening and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to issue statements testifying to the safety of each of the countries respective beef. This paper looks at the short-term impact of the MCD media propaganda on consumer demand for beef in the United States. Due to the fact that the supply of beef in the United States is all told risk free, or at very most extreme tokenish risk, in terms of MCD and the risk to the beef supply, the scientific side of the legend need not be considered.