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                                                     The Economics of a Disease

Have you eaten a hamburger recently? Or are you avoiding beef these days? Since last month many people all over the world have decided to (1 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify eating beef because they are afraid of 'mad cow' disease. Recent research in Britain has suggested there could be a connection between mad cow disease and a deadly brain virus in humans called Creutzfeldt-Jakob. Scientists are working hard to (2 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify the exact cause of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, but so far they have not been able to prove for sure that the disease is passed from cows to humans. Even if there is a connection between eating beef and getting the disease, your chances of catching Creutzfeldt-Jakob are extremely small. Only a very small (3 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify of the population gets it annually -- in most European countries the incidence is around six or seven cases per million people each year. Although the actual danger is tiny, the publicity surrounding mad cow disease has been enormous, and this has done a great deal of damage to the (4 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify of British beef in the minds of consumers. They simply no longer see it as a healthy or desirable product, and countries all over the world are refusing to (5 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify British beef. This boycott has had a huge (6 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify on the British economy and farmers there are very worried. Millions of cows -- most of them probably healthy -- will have to be killed before consumers will regain confidence in British beef. The British government now faces the problem of how to compensate farmers for the loss of their animals. The cost is enormous and the British have asked their European neighbours to help (7 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify the payments to farmers. But the Europeans have not been very generous and are granting $250 million less than the British had hoped for. This illustrates, once again, how difficult it is to achieve (8 genuine import image impact fraction finance forgo identify economic cooperation in the European Union. And the announcement yesterday that a new case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob has been discovered in France will only make things worse.

--from The Herald-Tribune, April 7, 1996