Word: cowed
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Roberto Gloria has a sign touting Danish beef in the window of his Rome butcher shop, but nobody's buying. Red meat used to make up 60% of his business, he says, but since the first case of "mad cow" disease was discovered in Italy last month, "no one even asks for it. Shoppers are terrorized." Meanwhile, at a bustling organic meat and vegetable market on Paris' Boulevard Raspail, greengrocer Gérard Courvaisier is all smiles. "Business is up 30% here. People suddenly see us as a refuge. The mad cow crisis has been a real shot...
...kangaroo. With certain beef products officially banned and others looked on with growing suspicion, there is a danger that some traditional European dishes, from ossobuco to côte de boeuf, may be headed for extinction. Such fears may well be exaggerated. But one thing seems certain: "mad cow" disease is changing the way Europeans eat and could have far-reaching effects on the way food is produced, marketed and prepared in the future...
...some two-thirds of all beef sales, turnover was down nearly 40% at the end of January. Many local butcher shops, on the other hand, have actually seen an increase in business. Paris' Frédéric Juré, who proudly displays photos and ID certificates of the cows he carves up, is now selling more beef than ever. "'Mad cow' disease has been a great good," he says. "It has breathed life back into the small butcher shops...
...Clearly, Europeans' flight from beef is leading them to seek alternatives. The most obvious are lamb, pork, poultry and fish, all of which have enjoyed increased sales since the latest outbreak of mad cow panic. For the truly health-conscious, however, there are potential problems with most of these alternatives. Sheep are susceptible to scrapie, a brain-destroying disease that may be the origin of bse. Mass-produced pork is bulked up with antibiotics and, illegally but not uncommonly, with hormones, while battery chickens are often similarly drugged. Though there is no indication that fish can harbor the bse prion...
...panacea, of course. Electroshock's effects are short term, lasting weeks or months before depression can descend again. At $2,500 a treatment, it's also expensive, though insurance usually covers it. Antishock activists say it's just a cash cow for hospitals and that the response rates cited by the Surgeon General are inflated. In 1996, Lawrence of ect.org surveyed 41 former electroshock patients and found that 70% said the treatment had no effect on their depression. Joseph Rogers, executive director of the National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse, says 3 out of 4 of the electroshock patients...