Trouble in Truffle Land Can truffle gatherers in Périgord continue their traditional way of life? Patrick Bruel Goes Retro... A fun musical flashback to the 1930s A Dog's Life... In a search for cleaner sidewalks an expat looks at pampered Parisian pooches Disappearing Concierges... Is the typical Parisian concierge becoming an endganered species? Paris Street Music... The sounds of the Paris street are the sounds of the world France's Legion of Honor... A look at France's Legion of Honor from a personal perspective In a Green Haze of Absinthe Absinthe inspired a generation of artists before it was banned in 1915. Will it make a comeback? A Search for the Ideal Cafe A ramble through Paris via the corner cafes SPECIAL REPORT ARCHIVE   what's happening and what we think about it   cool stuff to do music, art, food, etc.   Want to know more about Paris Tempo? Read this message from the Paris Tempo Team		Will Prostitution be criminalized? Understanding the debate... What the girls on the street think... How the traffickers moved in... What are the police doing... How customers see it... Were French soldiers serving in Bosnia and Kosovo made ill by radioactive ammunition? Is there a "Balkan Syndrome"... What are "depleted uranium" munitions... Understanding the health risks... Plus: The Danone Boycott... Mad Cow Scare and French reaction.. Political asylum and refugees' status... Dossier: Mad Cow Madness What is the "Mad Cow" scare really about? And what are the implications for France... The fear takes over... Who's paying for this... French change the menus... A lawsuit over Mad Cow... Mad Cow Madness: Fear Takes Over The latest "Mad Cow" scare began after the Carrefour supermarket chain was ordered to remove meat from its shelves on October 22 because it may have come from an infected herd. The suspect meat was identified after inspectors at a slaughterhouse noticed a cow from the same herd exhibiting symptoms of the disease. "Mad Cow" originated in Britain where cattle were given feed containing the ground remains of sheep infected with a brain ailment. The disease, medically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, wastes the brain and is suspected to be linked to a similar human malady, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. These spongiform diseases eat holes in the brains of victims, and no cure has been discovered. Now you can listen to ParisTempo's new musical selections online right here... In 1996 when the illness was identified in Britain, it became front page news in France. Panicked, the French banned British beef, and many refused to eat any beef that wasn't clearly labeled as originating in France. A series of procedures were put in place to protect consumers against infected beef, and concern about the malady faded from top of the public agenda. However, the problem hadn't gone away. This year, roughly 90 cases of mad cow were found among animals in France compared to only 31 last year, according to the Associated Press. When "Mad Cow" hit the headlines again, this fall, hysteria set in. On 7 November, the National Federation of Unions of Agricultural Farms, a French farmers' union, declared it would no longer sell meat from cows born before mid-1996, when strict measures to fight the disease were introduced. Some schools in Paris and elsewhere removed beef from children's lunch menus. President Jacques Chirac went on television asking for a total ban on animal-based livestock feed which is a source of the disease. But Prime Minister Lionel Jospin suggested the environmental and health risks posed by the destruction of cow carcasses would be worse, and refused to support Chirac's proposal. Reacting to the growing proportions of the scare, France's consumer affairs minister Francois Patriat said on 9 November that no scientific evidence exists to justify the widening alarm over mad cow disease. Patriat defended Jospin's decision not to take up a presidential request to immediately ban animal-based livestock feed. Early Warning Signs of "Mad Cow" in humans adapted from the official mad cow website. According to The Lancet, early symptoms are often similar to those of certain psychiatric disorders. The affected individual may experience personality changes, depression, difficulty sleeping, withdrawal, fearfulness, and paranoia. The person may also develop motor abnormalities such as difficulty maintaining balance, and feel unusual pain when touched on the face, arms, and legs. In the past, doctors have been slow to recognize the disease because brain wave tracings of the patients did not show the changes that are usually observed in traditional cases of the human brain disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. Doctors can best identify the presence of the disease from the distinctive pattern of waxy deposits known as amyloid plaques that are found in the brain along with the usual holes that give the brain an appearance of Swiss cheese. Meanwhile the Agriculture Ministry's special research section on mad cow announced it would temporarily ban sweetbreads, a delicacy made from a cow's thymus gland, for one year as a precaution. Cow intestines were banned last month. Despite the government's efforts at spin, the public's fear spiraled. T-bone steak was next on the hit list. All livestock feed containing meat from mammals -- not just feeds for cattle -- were banned. The fears over mad cow disease were crippling beef sales in France. The government took out a full-page ad in the nation's daily papers on 19 November, headlined ``Why beef can be eaten without fear.'' The ad was intended to assure the public that beef is safe. The advertisements said any cow found to suffer from the disease is killed along with its herd and that animal-based feeds have been banned for cows since 1990. The ad also included a hotline number that people may call for information on the disease. According to Europe-1 radio, the hotline received 700 calls in the first 13 hours of operation. Political leaders were making trips to the countryside to be seen and photographed eating beef with the farmers. Prime Minister Lionel utilized one such moment to express his displeasure with the administrations of certain schools that have eliminated beef from the student's lunch menu. He echoed the call for calm, and urged mayors across the country to allow beef back into school cafeterias. With beef sales down 40 percent, the Agriculture Minister, Jean Glavany, announced, on 21 November, a plan intended to aid the beef farmers. In 1996, when the last "mad cow" scare hit France, the farmers and others in the beef production chain, were given assistance of 2.8 milliards de Francs. This time they want more. The farmers' unions want direct cash grants for the cattle farmers, a solution to the pile-up of "cow carcasses" that can no longer be recycled into feed, and a plan to supply enough vegetable proteins to replace animal-based feeds. Chirac met with the farming leaders in a show of support, and promised to make food safety a key talking point at the EU summit. Meanwhile, on 20 November EU Agriculture ministers met to discuss ways of combating fears about the safety of beef across the 15-nation group. They agreed in principle on a massive upgrade of testing, with mandatory tests on all older cattle. discuss this story Understanding the Issue: Mad Cow Madness: Who's Paying Mad Cow Forces Menu Changes Taking Mad Cow to the Courts
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