When stiff upper lips are quivering: a by-the-numbers look at Britain's "mad cow" crisis

Vegetarian Times, Sept, 1996 by Amy Rosenbaum Clark, Julia Hope Jacquel

a MOO-VABLE feast of facts and figures, illustrating how BSE (the scientific term for "Mad Cow Disease") has disrupted life in the Empire. Why so nervous in the land of stiff upper lips? Because some experts say BSE can be transmitted to humans in the form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), a fatal neurological disorder that has increased more than 100 percent in England. The crisis is also decimating the British beef industry. Although some of these statistics highlight the event's irony and absurdity, others are sobering and reveal the tragic consequences this crisis has had on people and animals.

Percent increase in number of call received by the UK Vegetarian society by people interested in vegetarianism as a result of the BSE crisis: 50

Typical number of lunch customers per week at the Country Life Vegan Restaurant in London before the mad cow disease crisis hit the media: 75

Typical number of lunch customers per week at the Country Life Vegan Restaurant in London after the crisis takes over the headlines: more than 300

Number of articles available in the British press files under the heading "BSE": 2,301

Number of articles, editorials and letters to the editor regarding BSE written between 21 March 1996 and 24 April 1996 (the height of the mad cow disease frenzy): more than 200

Percent of Tesco stores (upscale supermarket chain) offering their customers lists of beef-free products: 100

Percent of which Sainsbury's (the major supermarket chain) cut beef prices during the last week of March: 50

Percent of Somerfield stores (another supermarket chain) that reported a "significant drop" in beef sales during the BSE crisis: 100

Number of British schools that took beef off their cafeteria menus in March of 1996, as a result of the BSE crisis: 10,000 nearly 100 percent)

According to an April poll, the percentage of Britons who believe their government knew about and tried to conceal, the risk of eating BSE-tainted beef: 73

Percentage of Britons who said they would eat beef before the BSE crisis: 60

Percentage of Britons who said they would eat beef after the BSE crisis: 32

Percentage of Britons who said they would eat no beef at all before the BSE crisis: 6

Percentage of Britons who said they would eat no beef at all after the BSe crisis: 34

Price that 600 head of cattle fetched at auction before the BSE crisis: 650,00 pounds

Price that 600 head of cattle fetched at auction at the height of the BSE scare: less than 200,000 pounds

Percent by which UK cattle prices fell on March 22, 1996, the day the World Health Organization called an emergency meeting with the British government to discuss the crisis: 28

Number of cases of BSE reported in the UK: 161,663

Number of cases of BSE in the rest of Europe: 383

Number of years CJD incubates before symptoms manifest themselves: 5 to 15

Number of human deaths from CJD in the UK in 1985: 28

Number of human deaths from CJD in the UK in 1994: 55

Percent of UK McDonald's outlets that banned British beef on March 24: nearly 100

Amy Rosenbaum Clark, former Vegetarian Times' Promotions Manager, is now a free-lance writer based in London. Julia Hope Jacquel is a vegetarian activist and marketer based in rural New Zealand.