While Regulators Sit in Denial, a Massive Epidemic is Sweeping Wild Deer and Threatens Cattle.

The announcement that BOSER might cause a fatal human disease "Creutzfeldt- Jacob disease CJD" triggered enormous media attention, public alarm and government wrangling that threatened the future of European integration.; As Scott Ratzan argues: "It is my belief that the [BOSER crisis] represents a quintessential case that will go down in history as the Exxon Valdez Union Carbide's Bhopal accident, and other such cases of interdisciplinary study".; This book offers lessons learned from the crisis, with contributions from experts with different viewpoints - veterinarians, Eurocrats, public relations experts, politicians, policy- makers, journalists and representatives of the beef industry.; It also offers a compilation of the key reports from governmental bodies. as a case-study in policy-making, scientific/health discovery and dissemination of information, as well as looking at the issues from the perspective of psychology and media studies.

Part of the Prentice Hall Exploring Biology Series, Mad Cows and Cannibals explores the biological, political and social aspects of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, including Mad Cow Disease and Chronic Wasting Disease. The text begins with stories of ritualistic cannibalism in the highlands of New Guinea, and leads to the modern agricultural feeding practices that triggered the Mad Cow Disease epidemic in Great Britain, and to recent outbreaks of Chronic Wasting Disease in North America. In clear and accessible language, it explains the biology of these bizzare, degenerative brain diseases, answering important questions about how TSEs affect the safety of our food supply, blood supply, and medical procedures.

The American West at Risk summarizes the dominant human-generated environmental challenges in the 11 contiguous arid western United States - America's legendary, even mythical, frontier. When discovered by European explorers and later settlers, the west boasted rich soils, bountiful fisheries, immense, dense forests, sparkling streams, untapped ore deposits, and oil bonanzas. It now faces depletion of many of these resources, and potentially serious threats to its few "renewable" resources. The importance of this story is that preserving lands has a central role for protecting air and water quality, and water supplies--and all support a healthy living environment. The idea that all life on earth is connected in a great chain of being, and that all life is connected to the physical earth in many obvious and subtle ways, is not some new-age fad, it is scientifically demonstrable. An understanding of earth processes, and the significance of their biological connections, is critical in shaping societal values so that national land use policies will conserve the earth and avoid the worst impacts of natural processes. These connections inevitably lead science into the murkier realms of political controversy and bureaucratic stasis. Most of the chapters in The American West at Risk focus on a human land use or activity that depletes resources and degrades environmental integrity of this resource-rich, but tender and slow-to-heal, western U.S. The activities include forest clearing for many purposes; farming and grazing; mining for aggregate, metals, and other materials; energy extraction and use; military training and weapons manufacturing and testing; road and utility transmission corridors; recreation; urbanization; and disposing of the wastes generated by everything that we do. We focus on how our land-degrading activities are connected to natural earth processes, which act to accelerate and spread the damages we inflict on the land. Visit www.theamericanwestatrisk.com to learn more about the book and its authors.

This first-ever encyclopedia of the Midwest seeks to embrace this large and diverse area, to give it voice, and help define its distinctive character. Organized by topic, it encourages readers to reflect upon the region as a whole. Each section moves from the general to the specific, covering broad themes in longer introductory essays, filling in the details in the shorter entries that follow. There are portraits of each of the region's twelve states, followed by entries on society and culture, community and social life, economy and technology, and public life. The book offers a wealth of information about the region's surprising ethnic diversity -- a vast array of foods, languages, styles, religions, and customs -- plus well-informed essays on the region's history, culture and values, and conflicts. A site of ideas and innovations, reforms and revivals, and social and physical extremes, the Midwest emerges as a place of great complexity, signal importance, and continual fascination.

Advertisers may want us to believe that our food is produced on picturesque farms, but the cold reality is that the plants and animals we consume may be the result of genetic engineering in the laboratories of multinational corporations. Biotechnology brings with it implications for human and animal health, the threat of environmental damage, a possible redefining of our global food system and a Pandora's box of ethical questions. But the consuming public remains virtually unaware of the genetic alterations of their food and what that may hold in store. Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, Unnatural Harvest holds nothing back in telling us how the food we now serve ourselves and our children may be altered and why we should be very concerned.