Media Myth: Nine Worst Business Stories
(of the Last 50 Years)

8. Oprah’s Beef with Beef
 

     On April 6, 1996, Winfrey dedicated her show to mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a neurological disorder in cattle that had caused widespread panic in the United Kingdom because it can be transferred to humans as variant Creutsfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD).

     The broadcast featured an interview with Howard Lyman, a former cattle rancher who had become a vegan and worked for the U.S. Humane Society as an opponent of meat products. Lyman confirmed Oprah’s fear that vCJD “could make AIDS look like the common cold.”

     Lyman claimed American farmers routinely ground up dead cows, including cows possibly infected with BSE, and fed them to healthy cows that were sold for beef. Another guest, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association spokesman Dr. Gary Weber, denied Lyman’s allegation and pointed out that the United States hadn’t seen any cases of BSE.

     Weber was right. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States didn’t see its first case of BSE until 2003. (Canada saw one case in 1993.) The United States saw one more case in 2004 and another in 2006. The CDC also reported only three cases of vCJD – how BSE manifests in humans. Two of the victims were connected to Great Britain, where BSE had been more common. The third was raised in Saudi Arabia and the CDC cited “strong evidence” that he was exposed to BSE there, not in the United States. 

     Nonetheless, Oprah declared that Lyman’s claims “just stopped me cold from eating another burger.” The next day, cattle futures plunged, and they continued dropping for weeks.

     One rancher, Paul Engler of Amarillo, Texas, claimed he lost $6.7 million due to the drop in cattle and cattle futures prices following the show’s airing, according to The Wall Street Journal. A group of farmers sued Winfrey, Lyman and the production companies responsible for the show for $12 million.

     The lawsuit was filed under the Texas False Disparagement of Perishable Food Products Act, which made it easier for food producers to bring libel charges against people who falsely criticized their production methods. Texas was one of 13 states to pass similar legislation in the aftermath of the Alar apples scandal (see Myth #2 on this list).

     The Los Angeles Times reported April 17, 1996, that lower cattle prices were “partly due to worries sparked by Oprah Winfrey’s television show.”

     Even Lyman acknowledged on his Web site that the show aired on Monday and beef futures fell on Tuesday. (They had already been declining “due to drought, over-supply and a number of complex factors,” he said.) “Pundits referred to this as the ‘Oprah crash,’” Lyman said.

     In an editorial Jan. 5, 1998, The Washington Post mentioned the lawsuit and called the laws it was based upon “wrong-headed and probably unconstitutional.” The editors felt that “the society-wide discussion of food issues is not just freewheeling but at times positively brawling. And this is as it should be.”

     The lawsuit was eventually dismissed because the courts determined cattle did not fall within the definition of perishable foods and because the growers failed to demonstrate, as the law required, that Winfrey and Lyman were knowingly spreading false information about beef safety.

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