Tens of millions more Britons are at risk of contracting the human form of mad cow disease than originally thought, raising fears over the safety of blood products and surgery. Scientists had believed that only 40 percent of the population with a specific gene type were susceptible to vCJD, the human form of the cattle disease BSE. But they recently discovered that the disease can lie dormant for decades in other people. The evidence could mean that rather than dying out, as had been hoped, vCJD may go on to be self-sustaining.

Recent studies of Alzheimer victims' brains show that a shocking 5.5 to 13 percent of these individuals actually died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. This is a serious and dangerous misdiagnosis with huge implications. Now we need to know how much of that CJD is the new variant type caused by mad cow disease. We need to remember that whether it is mad cow or bird flu, we are only one mutation away from a worldwide pandemic, and that factory farming and humans' desire to eat meat constitute the root causes. Today, millions of humans could be incubating the brain-wasting disease vCJD, and it could take anywhere from 10 to 40 years before symptoms appear; symptoms very similar to Alzheimer's, and also 100 percent fatal.

[As a former cattle rancher,] feeding dead animal waste to plant-eating cows was like robbing the bank with the help of the sheriff. We never gave a thought to the health of the animals, as long as they made it to slaughter. The idea that turning cows into cannibals could come back to haunt us was the furthest thought from our minds. Mad cow disease shocked the world. At the same time, governments were scrambling to word news releases so that meat sales would continue lining the pockets of large multi-national corporations. Faced with a similar problem with avian flu today, the news release has become the preferred vehicle of protecting the consumer. This approach might work if birds could read. Every time we spend a dollar, we are voting on the future. When we spend our money on meat produced on a factory farm, we are endorsing the madness that takes place on those farms. [-IT-A long and excellent article by Howard Lyman, the "Mad Cowboy"-/IT-]

Too much of a good thing isn't good for anyone. That goes for protein, too. After years of people stuffing themselves with chicken, pork and beef while they were following low-carb diets like Atkins, the meat industry is looking at a glut as the diet trend turns toward a more balanced approach. Benchmark wholesale prices for beef and pork are down more than 8 percent from a year ago and 20 percent for chicken, according to the Livestock Marketing Information Center. "There is just an overabundance of protein on the market," the center's Jim Robb said.

Good profits in 2004 and 2005 tempted farmers and agribusiness companies to raise production faster than the growth in demand. But changing diets have helped pressure the market, as have export problems for beef and chicken. Consumers are increasingly shunning high-protein diets like Atkins and South Beach, which have been lauded for inducing rapid weight loss but criticized for raising the intake of fats and cholesterol. Despite diet fads, the long-term trend is for U.S. consumers to eat more meat and spend less for it as producers and processors become more efficient.

The shoes are fashionable. And the food isn't bad either. No longer considered a "hippie fad," the vegan lifestyle is translating into business opportunities, resulting in part from a growing $50 billion a year natural-products industry.

There are more than 1.7 million vegans, in the United States, according to a 2000 poll conducted by the [Vegetarian Resource Group]. Choices for vegan consumers are growing along with demand, as more niche businesses cater to vegans, and main-stream grocery stores carry more products, said John Cunningham, consumer research manager for the vegetarian group. The market for foods replacing meat and other animal products is estimated at $2.8 billion, according to Mintel International Group Ltd., a research consumer company.

Animal activists protested peacefully at an international meat industry forum in Brisbane after earlier chaining themselves to machinery at an abattoir. More than 100 people marched through the city's centre to protest against the 2006 World Meat Congress. About 700 meat industry representatives gathered for the three-day conference. Improving animal welfare headed the forum's agenda [on the last day] but Animal Liberation NSW spokeswoman Danielle Archer said it was a "joke".

At the conference, Dr David Bayvel of the World Organisation for Animal Health said consumers expressed interest in humanely-produced products but the reality was different. "You carry out surveys and 50 or 60 percent of consumers say they'll pay quite happily for improved animal welfare product. When faced with choice in the supermarket and getting out their credit card at the check-out counter, that 60 percent falls to 5 or 6 percent."

Stop participating in the shame of our generation: Give "babe" some wriggle room. The pitiable walk from the pig pen to the slaughter house is the high point of the lives of many pigs. The way we treat farm animals is so barbaric, we will be rightly condemned by future generations for the unthinkable levels of distress and cruelty that we are inflicting on these emotional and gentle creatures. By the time they get to the sow stalls, pigs have already experienced excruciating levels of pain. Piglets have their tails docked without anaesthetic, causing them to writhe in excruciating pain, so much so they shake and vomit. Their teeth are also clipped, causing intense pain for more than two weeks.

We would be hypocrites to continue to turn a blind eye to such practices. We are quick to condemn seal clubbing in Canada and dog farming in northern China, but seem content to ignore this far more barbaric practice, to creatures whose emotional and intelligence levels are at least as high as that of dogs and seals. In fact there are few species that are as social as pigs. Why inflict a life full of misery, pain and deprivation on sentient beings just so people can feast on their flesh for a few cents less? It's time to correct the balance. Before you order your next meal, reflect (if only for an instant) about how the meal came to be.

"An Inconvenient Truth," starring [former U.S. presidential candidate] Al Gore (playing the role of Al Gore, itinerant lecturer), is coming to a theatre near you. Reserve some seats. Bring the family. It shouldn't be missed. No kidding. As a means of education, "An Inconvenient Truth" is a brilliantly lucid, often riveting attempt to warn Americans off our hellbent path to global suicide. "An Inconvenient Truth" is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important.

If you are inclined to think that the unjustly awarded election of 2000 led to one of the worst Presidencies of this or any other era, it is not easy to look at Al Gore. He is the living reminder of all that might not have happened in the past six years. Imagining that alternative history is hard to bear, which is why Gore always has the courtesy, in his many speeches, and at the start of "An Inconvenient Truth," to deflect that discomfort with a joke: "Hello, I'm Al Gore and I used to be the next President of the United States." There is no substitute for Presidential power, but Gore is now playing a unique role in public life. He is a symbol of what might have been, who insists that we focus on what likely will be an uninhabitable planet if we fail to pay attention to the folly we are committing, and take the steps necessary to end it.