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(vsg) Oprah Winfrey pledges to stop eating burgers

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matthew Krom)
Thu Apr 18 11:56:01 1996

To: vsg@MIT.EDU
From: krom@media.mit.edu (Matthew Krom)
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 96 11:55:00 EDT

Check out this news item...  I happened to catch this episode of Oprah
(thanks to an email tip), and the studio audience was indeed astounded by
what they learned from Howard Lyman.  Good show!

Matt


------- Forwarded Message
From:    dbriars@world.std.com
To:      mclibel@facteur.std.com
Subject: OPRAH WINFREY PLEDGES TO STOP EATING BURGERS
From: mclibel@globalnet.co.uk

McLibel Support Campaign
Tel/Fax +44-(0)171 713 1269

17th April, 1996
News report from Reuters:


OPRAH WINFREY PLEDGES TO STOP EATING BURGERS

WASHINGTON (Reuter)
April 17th, 1996

Talk show host Oprah Winfrey has taken on the beef industry, saying she would 
stop eating hamburgers because of fears over mad cow disease.  Winfrey said 
on her show she was shocked after a guest said meat and bone meal made from 
cattle was routinely fed to other cattle to boost their meat and milk
production.

"It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger," Winfrey said 
Tuesday.

The camera showed members of the studio audience gasping in surprise as 
vegetarian activist Howard Lyman explained how cattle parts were rendered and 
fed to other cattle.  Scientists have said the practice likely helped spread
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease, to thousands of
cows in Britain until it was outlawed in 1989.

The European Union executive imposed a ban on British beef last month after 
that government said it was possible people could develop the brain-wasting 
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) after eating meat from animals infected with 
BSE.

Other guests on ABC's Oprah Winfrey Show included Briton Beryl Rimmer, who 
said her granddaughter contracted CJD from eating beef.  American Linda Marker 
said her mother-in-law died recently of CJD after eating beef in Britain in
1986.

News of the popular show's content swept through the cattle futures markets, 
contributing to major declines in all the beef contracts as traders feared
it would turn Americans away from beef.

"Some people are concerned because of the number of homemakers who are at 
home and listening and watching Oprah,'' said Chuck Levitt, an analyst with 
Alaron Trading Corp in Chicago.  Live cattle futures for April delivery fell
1.50 cents, the daily limit allowed under exchange rules, to $58.925 per
pound on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.  Gary Weber, a cattle industry
lobbyist who was also a guest on the show, accused Winfrey of editing out
his statements giving the industry's position.

"Every possible effort has been taken to make sure (a BSE outbreak) never
happens here,'' said Weber, an animal health expert at the National Cattlemen's
 
Beef Association.  No cases of BSE have been discovered in the United States.

The U.S. cattle industry last month called for a voluntary ban on the
feeding of ruminant protein to other ruminants.


Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
------- End of Forwarded Message


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