Tuesday, January 13, 1998

Is Oprah the only mad cow around?

By MOLLY IVINS

AUSTIN - My campaign to point out the ridiculousness of honoring Rupert Murdoch for anything except being a ruthless media baron has been so effective that the pope has now named Murdoch to a papal knighthood. Yep. According to the Vatican, Murdoch is being honored for being of "unblemished character" and "promoting the interests of society, the Catholic Church and the Holy See." Murdoch, the man who used to insist that his newspaper use the words "rape," "stab" or "kill" in front-page headlines a required number of times a week will be inducted into the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope John Paul II.

But for the true connoisseur of the ludicrous, few things can match the upcoming trial of Oprah Winfrey in Amarillo on charges of libeling cows. It was embarrassing enough when the Legislature passed the veggie libel law, outlawing the disparagement of Texas agricultural products. In what I thought was a flight of fancy at the time, I warned that Big George Bush could be nailed for his well-known disparagement of broccoli. But even I never contemplated anything as nightmarishly, pluperfectly, outrageously silly as suing Oprah for announcing she wouldn't eat hamburgers any more.

Assorted spokespersons for cows have been on television swearing up and down that Winfrey's remark has cost ranchers millions, rendered many destitute and homeless, driven men from their ancestral ranches, and caused the sale of beef to plummet to nothing. (If true, why haven't prices dropped? I just paid $3.49 a pound for stew meat the other day.) All because Winfrey said she wouldn't eat hamburgers anymore. In the Panhandle, where Winfrey will enjoy her taste of Texas justice, there are bumper stickers reading, "The Only Mad Cow Around Is Oprah."

Winfrey's guest on the fateful day she made the remark about not eating hamburgers anymore was Howard Lyman of the Humane Society of the United States. Lyman was discussing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease," which the British government now admits is the "most likely" cause of a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - an incurable, fatal illness that fills its victims' brains with microscopic, spongy holes.

Lyman's discussion was factually accurate; Winfrey was shocked by his assertion that dead cows are ground up and fed back to other cows, but in fact it was common practice both here and in Britain. Lyman didn't even call it "cow cannibalism," which is the zippy name for it.

According to the PR Watch newsletter, officials realized in 1991 that stopping cow cannibalism was the best approach to preventing a U.S. outbreak of mad cow disease but concluded that "the disadvantage is that the cost to the livestock and rendering industries would be substantial." The Food and Drug Administration waited until June 1997 before announcing new regulations to restrict the feeding of most meat and bone meal from cows, sheep and goats back to other ruminants. According to the newsletter, the regulation is filled with loopholes designed to protect the status quo in the meat industry.

Lyman did make one extreme statement - that mad cow disease "could make AIDS look like the common cold." Winfrey promptly said, "That's an extreme statement, you know." But, in fact, Lyman is technically correct: Mad cow disease can take years, even decades, to incubate, so it is impossible to predict the size of an outbreak during its early stages.

Beyond the specifics of the Winfrey case, the veggie libel law is a gross limitation of free speech. Any public interest group or journalist reporting on mad cow disease, e. coli deaths, salmonella poisoning, genetically engineered crops and animals, growth hormones, antibiotic drugs used regularly on animals, factory farming, pesticides, toxins in fertilizer, and many other agricultural controversies is subject to being sued under this law. This is nothing more than an attempt by the food industry to make its critics shut up. Its critics have saved many, many lives.

Unlike a normal libel law, under which the plaintiff has to prove someone has deliberately and knowingly spread false information, the veggie libel shifts the burden of proof. "False information" is defined as deviation from "reasonable and reliable scientific inquiry, facts or data." A classic example of "deviation from reasonable and reliable scientific inquiry" would be Winfrey's exclaiming, upon being told dead cows are fed to other cows, that she wouldn't eat any more hamburgers. If cow cannibalism gives you pause, for heaven's sake don't say so out loud - they'll nail you under the veggie libel law.

Now, if you think the multibillion-dollar beef industry can't find some scientists who will claim BSE doesn't cause mad cow disease, you haven't been paying attention. (Understand that science cannot "prove" smoking causes lung cancer. There is only a high correlation between smoking and lung cancer - not "proof" in scientific terms.) In fact, one of the most troubling developments in the eternal problem of how to get accurate information in this world is the growth of "corporate science" - research paid for by corporations and special interests that have a monetary stake in the outcome of the research.

E-mail Molly Ivins at mollyivins@star-telegram.com.

Creators Syndicate, Inc.