Mad Man Worries About Mad Cows
By Lori DesRochers
Staff Writer

If you've ever been wary of the meat on your plate, Michael Gregor is not the best lunchtime companion for you. Gregor is thoroughly convinced that American meat is infested with Mad Cow Disease, and he is sure to scare even the most staunch carnivores away from their burgers. Sitting amongst a handful of students in the Frank Blue Room at lunch on Wednesday, his bespectacled, slightly hunched form concealed the vehement statements he was about to make. Armed with startling statistics, terrifying predictions, and confidence enough to silence even his most fierce competitors, Gregor railed on everything from the cattle industry to the FDA and the government.

Bovine spongiform encephality (BSE), commonly known as Mad Cow Disease, is currently thought to only be a threat in European countries. Gregor asserts that this is a lie propagated by those who fear that an attack on the billion dollar American beef industry will be a too devastating a blow.

BSE, which infects humans as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), is a relentlessly progressive and invariably fatal brain disease. The largest problems in dealing with the disease are that it cannot be definitively diagnosed until the patient has died, and the incubation period is so long that an infected patient may carry the disease unknowingly for any amount of time. Comparing the disease to HIV and the Plague, Gregor predicts that 18 million people will die from CJD in the years to come.

Mad Cow Disease is spread when cows are fed meal made from the bones and meat of other infected cows. "It's like unsafe sex," said Gregor. "You're not just eating that cow, but every cow that that cow ate." Though the United States has made this kind of feeding illegal, it is still legal to mix cow's blood in feed for many other animals as well as to feed the blood of various other animals to cows. As the disease has currently progressed to deer, monkeys, and mink, Gregor fears that it is here to stay.

His solutions to the problem include making strict enforcement on animal feed to stop the contamination. He also wants to make CJD a reportable disease on a federal level, so that American awareness can be raised. Most of all, he is looking to raise the level of commitment to inspecting American cattle for the disease. "You cannot find what you are not looking hard enough for," he said. He believes that the U.S. is completely avoiding the issue, and that current inspections are based on "inaccurate, incomplete, and unreliable information."