"Mad Cow" Disease and the Animal Industrial Complex
- 1 March 1997
- journal article
- research article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Organization & Environment
- Vol. 10 (1), 26-51
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0921810697101007
Abstract
A possible link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly called "mad cow" disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal human equivalent, has been announced. Both of these diseases are forms of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies that attack the brain and destroy its nerve cells. That a disease identified with cows since 1985 could possibly be spread to human beings by eating meat from infected animals prompted a crisis for the meat industry and consumers. Most responses to this crisis represent a search for anthropocentric solutions to an anthropocentric problem: that is, improve the meat supply rather than examine the practice of meat eating. In this essay, the author examines this beefeating crisis through ecofeminist analysis, which resists such anthropocentricity. From an ecofeminist perspective, the beefeating crisis represents a small piece of the larger animal industrial complex and its production practices and attitudes. This analysis explains why this is a problem, and stresses a closer examination and a possible rejection of meat eating.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- A new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the UKThe Lancet, 1996
- Comment on George's "Should Feminists Be Vegetarians?"Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 1995
- Vegan diets for women, infants, and childrenJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 1994
- Rejoinder to Kathryn Paxton GeorgeJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 1994
- In defense of the vegan ideal: Rhetoric and bias in the nutrition literatureJournal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 1994
- Nutritional risks of vegan diets to women and children: Are they preventable?Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 1994
- Who can be morally obligated to be a vegetarian?Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, 1992
- Ecofeminism and the Eating of AnimalsHypatia, 1991
- Your Daughter or Your Dog? A Feminist Assessment of the Animal Research IssueHypatia, 1991
- Sheep Consumption: A Possible Source of Spongiform Encephalopathy in HumansNeuroepidemiology, 1985