040136 Beef Industry Again Upset By Figure in Oprah Case

Amarillo, TX - The central figure in Oprah Winfrey's legal fight with cattle ranchers outraged many in beef country six years ago with his prediction that sloppy meat production practices all but guaranteed mad cow's arrival in the United States.

With the first domestic occurrence of mad cow disease in December, Howard Lyman is again upsetting the beef industry.

Lyman, a former Montana rancher-farmer turned vegetarian, said the discovery validates his concerns about how cattle are raised and slaughtered to produce tons of meat each year. His comments on Winfrey's show in 1996 prompted a lawsuit by Texas cattlemen, who lost.

"I wish it had never happened, but you see somebody driving toward a cliff at 200 mph and they won't step on the brake, you can pretty well figure out what they're going to do," said Lyman, who now lives in Alexandria, Va.

Industry officials dismiss Lyman's prediction that more mad cow cases are imminent and vow that the nation's meat supply is safe. They also stress that the diseased cow found in Washington state wasn't from a U.S. herd.

"All I can say is the cow came from Canada," said Kevin Crooks, 40, who raises about 7,500 head of cattle in West Texas. "That's where the problem all came from. I think that's what's going to save the United States cattle industry."

Paul Engler, the rancher and feedlot owner who initially brought the suit against Oprah, agrees that the Canadian link undermines Lyman's claim.

"If the cow originated in the United States, I'd say yes, I'd have the same concerns. But it didn't," Engler said.

Lyman's clash with the beef industry started when he went on Winfrey's show and said that processed livestock was being fed to cattle - a practice he said could spread mad cow disease in the United States. Winfrey responded by saying she'd never eat another hamburger.

The beef industry sued under Texas' little-used "veggie libel" law that forbids false and disparaging remarks about agriculture products, claiming the nationally televised comments caused beef prices to tumble and cost ranchers millions of dollars.

Winfrey spent six weeks in Amarillo during the trial, drawing mixed reviews. Some critics wore hats and sported bumper stickers that read "The only mad cow in Texas is Oprah," but many wore "Amarillo Loves Oprah" buttons, caps and T-shirts.

Jurors sided with Winfrey and Lyman in 1998, and an appeals court upheld the verdict. A second lawsuit against Winfrey filed shortly after the first trial lingered until its dismissal in 2002.

Winfrey declined to talk to The Associated Press for this story, but Chip Babcock, one of the First Amendment attorneys who represented her in the lawsuit, said Lyman's comments were prophetic.

"It turns out the man who was saying we should be prepared for this and it very well could turn up here, that opinion has been vindicated," Babcock said.

Mad cow disease, also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, is a threat because scientists say humans can develop a brain-wasting illness, a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, from consuming contaminated beef products. But that link has been challenged, and experts say the risk to individual consumers is minuscule.

While 153 people worldwide have contracted that illness, most in Britain, it has never been diagnosed in an American.

Lyman said he's certain the mad cow case reported in Washington won't be the last in the United States.

"If you think there's only one, you're smoking the No. 1 crop out of California," he said.

But those in the beef industry say they're conducting tests and taking other measures to ensure a safe product.

"I sure can't speculate on whether we'll find anymore or not, nor, I think, can anyone else," said Burt Rutherford, spokesman for the Texas Cattle Feeders Association in Amarillo. "But I can tell you that we are going to very aggressively look for it."

For many in the industry, a vegetarian's predictions are the least of their concerns.

They're still suffering since cattle prices have fallen and layoffs have been reported since beef exports have been restricted. Ten percent of the nation's meat is exported.

But they're certain beef is still safe.

"American ranchers and American producers strive to create a safe product because we love to eat it too," said Crooks, the West Texas cattleman. "We wouldn't want to be eating it if it was bad for us."

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