Oprah Speak Out—What’s the Beef?

Oprah Speak Out—What’s the Beef?

Oprah Speak Out—What’s the Beef?

In 1996, the beef industry blamed famed talk show host Oprah Winfrey for the dramatic decrease in cattle prices after one of her shows, which aired in the same year, discussed the hazards of dangerous foods, specifically bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease. Charles Levitt, a livestock analyst with Alaron Trading Corp, said Winfrey’s show exacerbated what was already a negative situation in the market. In particular, a group of cattle ranchers from Amarillo, Texas sued Ms. Winfrey, her production company, and Howard Lyman, a Humane Society official, who was a guest on this particular show, citing that negative statements about beef were made. Lyman stated, “One hundred thousand cows per year in the United States are fine at night, dead in the morning. The majority of those cows are rounded up, ground up, fed back to other cows. If only one of them has Mad Cow Disease, it has the potential to infect thousands. This disease could make AIDS look like the common cold. ” After which, Winfrey replied, “It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger!"

Alisa Harrison, a spokeswoman for the National Cattlemen's Association, said that she had been at the Winfrey program taping at Harpo Studios in Chicago, and that Gary Weber, the trade group's animal-health and food-safety expert, had been interviewed at the same time as Howard Lyman. "We knew it was a tough situation, that the deck might be stacked against us, but we had a good story to tell on food safety, and that there is no BSE in the U.S." Harrison said. "I think Gary held his own during the taping." After viewing the program Tuesday afternoon, Harrison blasted it. "We've been hearing from our members all over the country who are angry about the show," she said. "I have never seen such biased editing. They seem not to want to tell our story that we have been ahead of the issue for 10...