This article states that although "Their beef industry is devastated, consumers are panicking, and some are probably already infected with vCJD, the human form of BSE", this still makes Europeans winners. Why? Because "now, at least they can start to reverse the damage."

This New Scientist piece makes all too clear the terrible price of DENIAL and false assurances by governments and experts in relation to a possible food safety problem and the steadfast refusal to investigate thoroughly.

As the official Phillips' report on BSE stated,  "The vast majority of those involved in the response to BSE believed, subjectively, that it was not a threat to human health. This belief was shared by many who could see, objectively, that the potential risk was there."

In October 2000 Professor Bob Orskov, director of the International Feed Resource Unit in Aberdeen, Scotland, warned about GM cattle feed that had not been thoroughly tested and he would not wish to drink milk from cows fed the GM fodder maize (corn) in question. Other scientists warned that the testing that had occurred was totally inadequate. There has been no adequate testing of any of the many GM crops released into the food chain. http://members.tripod.com/~ngin/2b.htm
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BSE: Europe admits it's mad
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns227027
As dozens of unsuspected cases are revealed across the continent, the truth is starting to emerge

THIS was the year Europe finally owned up to the mad cows in its midst. For years, scientists had been telling just about every European country that they had fed way too many British cattle to their herds to be as free of BSE as they claimed. Now that better surveillance has revealed dozens of unsuspected cases across the continent, the truth is starting to emerge.

Just how bad is it? We'll find out next year, when a massive and unprecedented biochemical campaign will begin in the European Union. Millions of slaughtered cows will be tested for BSE.

Why does this make Europeans winners? Their beef industry is devastated, consumers are panicking, and some are probably already infected with vCJD, the human form of BSE. But now, at least they can start to reverse the damage.

While their governments turned a blind eye to mad cow disease, Europeans happily ate cow brains in their sausages and burgers--some of which, we now know, were infected. Germany, insisting it had no BSE, even blocked efforts by the European Commission to stop it spreading. Then, in November, it found its own mad cows and is now leading the charge against the disease. That alone is good news. So is the ban, from January, on feeding livestock any rendered animal remains other than fat.

Yet this is only the beginning of a monumental task. We also need to find out whether sheep, pigs and other animals that may have been exposed to BSE are safe to eat. Europe's long insouciance probably left thousands of its animals, maybe even its very soil, contaminated. It could take decades to eradicate.

Elsewhere, the plague may still be spreading, unseen and unlooked-for: infected British cattle and their remains were exported to meat producers from Texas to Thailand. These other countries need to hunt for trouble more energetically than Europe did.

Debora MacKenzie From New Scientist magazine, 23 December 2000.