In 1997 I interviewed John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton about their book Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here? Given this week's news of the first-reported cow with the disease in the United States, I thought I would recycle that interview. Stauber and Rampton's in-depth analysis of the phenomenon and the U.S. beef industry's efforts to avoid dealing with it are a useful and hard-hitting corrective to the campaign already underway to spin the story.
Stauber and Rampton are also the authors of the excellent books Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (1995); Trust Us, We're Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future (2001); and Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq (2003). They also put out PR Watch, a muckraking newsletter about the PR and Public Affairs industries.