T A B L E+T A L K Oprah vs. the beef industry Whose side are you on? Join the debate in Politics D A I L Y+Q U O T E Unemployed Parisians have priorities right R E C E N T L Y The odd couple By Richard Rodriguez Castro and the pope have more in common than the West thinks (01/19/98) The end By Jonathan Broder Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Clinton will likely sink the Middle East peace process altogether (01/16/98) The worst show on earth By Ros Davidson Ted Kaczynski should be in a mental hospital. Instead, he's about to become the star in a grotesque courtroom circus (01/15/98) Dream girls By Jonathan Broder Why we watch figure skaters go through puberty on national television (01/14/98) The man behind Paula Jones By Jonathan Broder The head of the Rutherford Institute says he's not political. An examination of his record suggests otherwise (01/13/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		W H E R E ' S_T H E_beef ? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - WHAT'S WRONG WITH OPRAH WINFREY SWEARING OFF HAMBURGERS? ACCORDING TO RICH TEXAS CATTLEMEN WHO FILED A $12 MILLION LAWSUIT AGAINST HER, IT'S LIBELOUS. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BY ERIK MARCUS | For once we have a high-profile celebrity trial that might actually affect people. The bizarre lawsuit by a group of Texas cattlemen against Oprah Winfrey, scheduled to open in a federal court in Amarillo, Texas, on Tuesday, might seem like a bit of a joke, but it could have a profound impact on food safety. It could inhibit journalists from going after stories about dangerous food and it could put American consumers at increased risk of life-threatening diseases. Several food-borne diseases, which were unheard of when small family farms produced America's meat and milk, are now quite common. Infections caused by salmonella organisms are surviving powerful antibiotics. A particularly grave threat comes from E. coli 0157, a bacterial strain nearly unknown a decade ago, which can give children horrific and sometimes fatal bouts of bloody diarrhea. Just last summer, the U.S. Department of Agriculture ordered the largest ever recall of E. coli-infected meat, involving 25 million pounds of beef produced at the Hudson Foods packing plant. For a few days, Burger Kings across the country had no burgers to sell. Some of America's meat producers aren't keen on having these emerging diseases publicized. It's bad for business. Taking aim at Winfrey, with the huge public following she commands, is a key component of their strategy to shut down media attention. The Texas cattlemen's lawsuit is a response to an "Oprah" broadcast in April 1996 that sent beef prices into free-fall for nearly two weeks. The show featured Howard Lyman, a former fourth-generation Montana cattle rancher, who once raised thousands of cattle a year. Today he spends nearly all his time crisscrossing the U.S. touting the benefits of vegetarianism. Also, in the interests of full disclosure, he wrote the foreward to my book, "Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating." On the show, Lyman stated that mad cow disease, which had resulted in the deaths of at least 10 people in Britain and led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of cows there, could also appear in the U.S. Despite the insistence of the American cattle industry that there was no sign of mad cow disease in U.S. herds, Lyman suggested that some early signs were visible, that the disease "has the potential to affect thousands" of people, and could be as infectious as the AIDS virus. While there is still some dispute, it is widely believed that mad cow disease infects cattle via "protein concentrates," which are derived from the discarded brains, spinal cords, blood and organs of slaughtered cattle. In Britain, the rendering process used to turn dead organs into protein concentrates failed to destroy the harmful "prions" that scientists think cause mad cow disease. American ranchers, like their British counterparts, were feeding millions of pounds of rendered cow flesh back to their cattle every year (the practice has since been banned in the U.S.), although they insist that the safety procedures were much stronger. Few Americans knew anything about rendering until Lyman appeared on "Oprah." While Oprah herself challenged Lyman at one point about whether some of his statements were "extreme," she said Lyman's presentation "has stopped me cold from eating another hamburger!" The audience applauded wildly. Many ranchers also went wild, for a different reason. Contrary to their gritty, freedom-loving image, they generally have a cushy life, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. All across the American West, ranchers are allowed to graze their cattle on federal land at bargain-basement prices. They pay just $1.35 to graze a steer on federal land for an entire month; that's less than it costs to feed a house cat. The fees don't even begin to cover the costs of fences, water tanks and dozens of other amenities the government builds for ranchers on federal lands. "Ranch owners are the original welfare kings," says rangeland historian Lynn Jacobs. "Every step of the way, the government has given them a free ride." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - N E X T+P A G E+| Ranchers get mean