BSE
As I've said before, I work as a scientific editor. Sometimes, I get to write a press release about an article that is of import to a wider audience than the bespectacled academics that usually peruse my publication.
Last December, my journal published an article about BSE, or "mad cow disease". Scientists from Agriculture Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had managed to identify the genetic code for the prion that caused Canada's first native case of BSE. While Canadians may not care to read a bunch of seemingly meaningless nucleotides, they might want to read the conclusion of the paper in laymen's terms: that in all likelihood this case of BSE was not isolated, that other cows of the same age could possibly have been infected, and that the most probably method of contraction was through tainted feed.
We interviewed the author. We wrote the press release. We had it vetted at the highest levels of AgCan and the CFIA. After a gruelling revision process, it was sent to media outlets across the country. It was ignored. The Canadian media had banded together and decided that the topic was too potentially inflammatory to cover. They killed the story. Not a week later, over Christmas, a Canadian cow in the US was diagnosed with BSE.
A few days ago, Canada's 4th non-imported case of BSE was discovered. I know that the press release I wrote likely wouldn't have stopped it from occurring. But perhaps it would have incited enough Canadians to be outraged, and demand a change to the current system that still allows rendered animal byproducts to be used to feed other livestock.
Herbivores don't eat other herbivores. Livestock should be fed their natural diet. Canadians should be outraged that they aren't being given all of the facts. It's not the government deciding what you should and shouldn't know, it's the media. People we didn't elect.
Comments
Americans are used to the media deciding what you should and shouldn't know. They've been doing that here for ever.
It is interesting though... because the american media has no problems covering stories that would be thought "inflammatory" in canada, and vice versa - when we were up there in Simcoe, we saw all kinds of interesting news stories on CAnadian news about stuff happening in the US that we would NEVER have seen covered here.
So my suggestion is that next time you want something to get out that the Canadian media is likely to squash, leak it to the American press and see what happens :-)
Posted by: heather at January 13, 2005 08:26 PM