Mad Cow Crisis: Health And The Public Good

by Ratzan,Scott; Ratzan,Scott

• ISBN13: 9781857288124
• ISBN10: 1857288122
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1998-01-16
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In the spring of 1996, when numerous reports of bovine spongioform encephalopathy, popularly known as "mad cow disease", coincided with an outbreak of a similar neuropathological disease in humans, a panic spread across Britain, Europe, and subsequently to the United States. Described as "the biggest crisis the European Union ever had", the mad cow controversy raised important issues about the ways in which risks to the public heath are assessed, disseminated, and controlled. Was the "epidemic" merely a failure of management, the lessons of which could be incorporated into a new strategy for dealing with public anxiety? Was it an isolated case of poor decision-making in a highly volatile economic sector, or was it the kind of nightmare that could face any government responsible for public safety? And what role did the media play in exacerbating an already spiraling crisis?

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction	p. 1
Scientific/Historical Perspectives	p. 7
BSE: A Veterinary History	p. 9
Transmissibility of BSE Across Species	p. 15
Sheep to Cows to Man: A History of TSEs	p. 26
Can the Spread of BSE and CJD be Predicted?	p. 35
Chronic Uncertainty and BSE Communications: Lessons from (and Limits of) Decision Theory	p. 51
Politics as Health	p. 63
BSE and CJD: Recent Developments	p. 65
Mad Cows and Englishmen	p. 86
BSE: A Tragedy is Public Health in Reverse	p. 91
The Politics of BSE: Negotiating the Public's Health	p. 95
Protecting Health: Can the UK do Better?	p. 111
Understanding the Crisis	p. 117
Madness, Metaphors and Miscommunication: The Rhetorical Life of Mad Cow Disease	p. 119
Media Coverage of the Mad Cow Issue
Introduction	p. 131
An Analysis of Media Coverage of the BSE Crisis in Britain	p. 138
An Analysis of Media Coverage of the BSE Crisis in the United States	p. 153
Lessons and Possibilities	p. 167
Avoiding, Averting and Managing Crisis: A Checklist for the Future	p. 169
Farming with Nature: A Solutions-Oriented Strategy	p. 175
Strategies for Attaining Public Health	p. 182
Appendices	p. 209
Afterword	p. 234
Notes on Contributors	p. 237
Index	p. 241
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