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在近几个月中,英国人被告知吃了羊肉可能会得损害大脑的克罗伊茨费尔特—雅各布综合症;喝了消过毒的牛奶可能会得一种叫节段性回肠炎的肠道病;吃了改变遗传特性的食物会导致免疫系统遭到破坏。消费者团体、新闻报刊和广播电台大肆宦染这种恐慌,似乎生命就危在旦夕。然而,对最初的两次事件,卫生部认为其危险是微不足道的。而去年八月份发生的对遗传作物的担忧后来被承认是虚惊一场—一位科学家因混淆了用于两种不同实验的小鼠而使其同事的研究结果张冠李戴了。这些事件只是英国近15年食物恐慌的最新事例——诸如鸡蛋中的沙门菌,乳酪中的李斯特菌,肉类中的大肠杆菌、抗菌素和激素以及每种食物中的农药残留物和酞酸盐(与苯有关的化合物);当然,最臭名昭著的还是由感染了疯牛病(牛海绵状脑炎)的牛制成的牛肉所引起的恐慌。除导致恐慌外,食物恐慌还会对农业经济造成巨大的破坏——牛肉销售最近才恢复到疯牛病事件前的水平。
In recent months, Britons have been told to eat Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which may damage their brains when eating lamb; drinking hypoallergenic milk may result in a segmented Intestinal disease of ileitis; eating food that changes genetic characteristics can damage the immune system. Consumer groups, the press, newspapers and radio stations wantonly blame the panic, as if life is at stake. However, for the first two incidents, the Ministry of Health considered the danger to be negligible. The concern over genetic crops in August last year was later recognized as a false alarm - a scientist made his colleague’s study a result of confusion over mice used in two different experiments. These are just the latest examples of food panics in Britain in the last 15 years - such as Salmonella in eggs, Listeria in cheese, Escherichia coli in meat, antibiotics and hormones, and pesticide residues in each food and phthalates Salt (a benzene-related compound); of course, the most notorious is the panic caused by beef made from cattle infected with mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalitis). In addition to causing panic, the food scare can also cause huge damage to the agricultural economy - beef sales have only recently returned to pre-BSE levels.