When Food Kills BSE, E. coli, and Disaster Science

1996 was not a good year in Britain. It opened with a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) emerging as the human form of BSE--Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or Mad Cow's Disease--and closed with the country's worst E.coli utbreak in central Scotland. The 'food scare' concept took on new meaning. As people died, so did trust in government and science. This book tells the story of these events, what led up to them, and what has happened since. For the general reader, the book's nontechnical but authoritative account of the science behind these tragedies, its critical appraisal of the government's response, its coverage of public inquiries, and its analysis of the risks promise to be stimulating and informative.