Although mad cow disease has never been documented in the United States, Oprah Winfrey says she had every right to speculate on her show about the possibility of an outbreak here. Texas cattlemen disagree, and on Tuesday pretrial hearings begin in a lawsuit charging that Ms. Winfrey defamed an entire industry when the disease was made fodder for her talk show.
Cattlemen claim they lost millions of dollars because of the show.
Oprah, her Harpo Productions Inc. and distributor King World Productions say the show was only keeping the public informed. Ms. Winfrey said in a statement shortly after the show aired. Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a brain-destroying disease that has ravaged cattle in Britain since the late 1980s. It is believed to have been spread by cattle feed containing ground-up sheep parts, but it was not until 1996 that British scientists announced that humans may have contracted the disease by eating diseased beef. Cattle prices began to fall the day of the show and fell for two weeks before rising again.