IS BSE ALREADY KILLING AMERICANS?

That's an alarmist question, almost cartoonish in its outrageous implications. Yet it's one that is now being raised with increasing candor and authority. ABC news put it as gently as possible: Some Experts Say Scientists Should Be Pressing to Make Sure Beef Isn't Causing Mad Cow in Humans (lede: "Scientists have yet to document a single U.S. case of someone getting the human version of mad cow disease from contaminated beef. Then again, they might not be looking hard enough") and mentioned some anecdotal evidence about a cluster of sporadic CJD in New Jersey. Then the Inquirer covered that case in a little more detail, as a "local link" story. But the New Jersey "anecdotal evidence" is only mentioned offhand in this meticulously documented broadside from the indefatiguable Dr. Michael Greger. In "Could Mad Cow Disease Already be Killing Thousands of Americans Every Year?" Greger lays out the reasons we cannot possibly answer "no" with any assurance, and weaves his examination of the possibility of a BSE-sporadic CJD correlation with authoritative warnings on CJD from the likes of Nobel Prize winners, the heads of CJD surveillance centers, and Paul Brown, medical director for the National Institutes of Health - who says bluntly that "No one has looked for CJD systematically in the U.S. Ever." So, uh, yeah, they might not be looking hard enough.