Blame for the Mad Cow Disease Crisis essays

Blame for the Mad Cow Disease Crisis essays Crisis's breeds finger pointing. When a crisis occurs, one of the first questions that is asked is, where does the blame belong. This happens on a scale from backyard fights with siblings to national crises. It is human nature to want to know where to point the finger. One such national crisis started on March 18th, 1996. On this date it was confirmed that there was a link between BSE, know as mad cow disease, and CJD, a neurological disease in humans. It was finally proven that people could get mad cow disease from eating infected meat. A week later British beef was banned world wide. One study estimates that more than seven hundred thousand BSE-infected cattle have entered the food supply.(Rhodes 219). CJD has such a long incubation period it is impossible to estimate the number of people that will die from this crisis. Now like any other crisis it must be determined where the blame should lie. Does the blame belong to the British government, the farmers, the research ers, or possibly a combination of all? In a CNN piece reporting on the Lord Phillips Report, Analysis: Hope and Blame in Britain, Robin Oakley, CNN Political Editor discussed Lord Phillips inqiury into who was to blame for the BSE crisis. The article begins by discussing the BSE crisis, and the problems that the ministers were faced with. There was concern about the possibility of a national panic, as well as the possibility of having to put down entire beef herds. The actions the British did take cost four billion pounds, and the British were also faced with being banned from exporting beef worldwide. The article then discusses blame. Oakley explains that the inquiry, places some minimal blame on the government saying, ministers paid too much attention to producers,the farmersand not enough attention to the potential risks to consumers, but that the government didnt lie, they just didnt wan...