Mad Cows and Englishmen: A Precautionary Tale. A. S. Ahl, US Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC
The Precautionary Principle is an approach to biosafety which seeks to minimize Type II errors by assuming that committing a Type I error represents a responsible approach for the management of public health risks. Current scholarship is developing case histories that examine the unwanted consequences for both public health, economics and other values following a Type I error. This examination should provide important information to government regulatory professionals since the Precautionary Principle predominates in many agencies. The case presented here, however, provides insight into the consequences of a Type II error with respect to public health. In the mid-1980’s a new disease of cattle appeared in both dairy and beef herds in the United Kingdom. The disease was first named "madcow disease" because of the behavior of an affected animal. Once the nature of the disease was better understood, the name became Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), a disease with parallels in sheep (scrapie), mink (transmissible mink encephalopathy), and humans (kuru, Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease or CJD) among others. The Precautionary Principle was not invoked in the management of BSE and human health. Instead, the public was assured that no harm could come from human ingestion of the meat or products from animals originating in herds known to carry BSE. As information about BSE has unfolded, the weight of evidence suggests that a BSE-like disease may occur in humans and may be caused by eating infected animal tissue. The management of BSE for animal and human health has moved more toward the cautionary approach. BSE spread beyond the borders of the UK into several European countries, and has become of significance in international trade.
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