Posted on 12/19/2002 3:19:49 PM PST by Motion Eaze
This quarter page display ad ran in the Idaho State Journal on Sunday,
Dec. 14, 2002. The Journal is the local newspaper in Pocatello, Idaho. The
ad was sponsored by the Journal itself, although in a later clarification
they claimed that it was "produced by a national organization".
Farm Bureau Writes Governor About Ad
BY MARK MENDIOLA
The Morning News - Blackfoot, ID
POCATELLO — In a letter to Gov. Dirk Kempthorne, the president of the state’s largest farm organization Tuesday requested the Attorney General’s Office investigate an advertisement published in an Eastern Idaho newspaper. Frank Priestley, president of the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, said an ad that appeared in Sunday’s Idaho State Journal was untrue, designed to scare consumers, anti-agriculture and anti- meat.
Copies of the letter sent to Attorney General Lance, Agriculture Director Pat Takasugi, Dr. Bob Hillman, state veterinarian;
Dr. Cindy Gaborick, APHIS veterinary services; Dr. Mohammed Ali, USDA meat inspection; the Idaho Cattle Association, the Idaho Dairy Association, Milk Producers of Idaho and the Journal.
The advertisement shows two cows at a feeding trough. A headline above them states: “That they have bovine tuberculosis is scary. That nobody’s allowed to know is even scarier.” It further states newspapers are working to present important information pertinent to critical subjects ranging from the safety of the nation’s food supply to police records.
In its Tuesday edition, the Journal stated in a clarification that the advertisement “improperly called into concern the state of the region’s food supply.” In its apology, the Pocatello. newspaper said the ad was produced by a national organization and was meant to support the rights of U.S. citizens to access public records.
The ad “improperly implied there is a conspiracy to cover up cases of bovine tuberculosis,” the Journal stated. “Some readers interpreted the ad as saying there was a local or regional problem. The Journal has no information indicating such a problem, locally or regionally or nationally, and has purged the ad from future printing schedules.”
Farm Bureau spokesman John Thompson said the federation got numerous calls about the advertisement on Monday. Thompson said he felt the clarification was barely noticeable compared to the display ad and “didn’t undo the damage it did.”
Idaho’s produce and livestock are legally protected from disparagement, Thompson said. “We are damn serious about this issue,” he said. “ We just think it was unethical. It was a scare tactic to frighten consumers to tell them their food, in this case, beef, was not safe. “We’re not satisfied with the clarification. ... This was an attack on the people who produce our food, the safest food in the world.” Thompson said he understood Farm Director Takasugi was to meet with the state veterinarian on Monday to discuss the issue.
In his letter, Priestley noted there are 57,400 member families in the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation. He said bovine tuberculosis does not exist in Idaho or most states. “This form of journalism needs to be given the broad light of public scrutiny and the paper investigated for publishing such untruths,” he wrote Kempthorne. Idaho has received USDA certification that it meets rigid disease control standards and is accredited as TB free, the Farm Bureau president said.
“The Idaho State Journal should have been able to look around and note that symptoms no longer exists and from that bit of sleuthing picked another disease to try to scare the public into reading their newspaper,” Priestley wrote. “ Such nonsense deserves an investigation by our Honorable Attorney General and the public informed that such deceitful practices will not be tolerated in our state and especially not tolerated by those who are relied upon to provide truthful information to our citizens”
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/article/1865-3588.html
Although the number of reported cases of TB has decreased steadily since the peak of the resurgence in 1992, the decline has been limited to people born in the United States.
...
The TB case rate during this period was 32.9 per 100,000 population in foreign-born people, compared with 5.8 per 100,000 in U.S.-born people. Among all foreign-born TB cases reported in the U.S., 73.4 percent were reported in six states: California, New York, Texas, Florida, New Jersey, and Illinois. Approximately two thirds of these cases were originally from Mexico, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, China, Haiti, and South Korean and among those for whom date of U.S. entry was known, 51.5 percent arrived 5 years or less prior to the diagnosis of TB.
In both the U.S.-born and foreign-born populations, the majority of cases occurred in males, and the largest numbers of cases occurred among people aged 25 to 44. Foreign-born people with TB were less likely to have risk factors such as a history of homelessness, residence in a correctional facility, or excess alcohol or injection drug use than U.S.-born TB patients.
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