'Mad cow' disease

Notwithstanding the somersaults turned by Ms. Tapp in her July 27 letter aimed at minimizing the "mad cow" problem, her letter just made things worse. The problem is extremely serious and cannot be solved with a few useless sentences, or with senseless theories upon preposterous topics. Anyway, Tapp's letter deserves to be parsed.

It's not a secret that, each year, many people die because of malnutrition, famine, smoking related illness, road accidents, heart disease and so on. Does Tapp think that the dose should be strengthened with the addition of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) conveyed by English cows? BSE is a real and impending danger and not a simple matter of scaremongering.

Tapp assures that "No one will force developing countries to buy our beef." Well, for sure she knows that there are "many ways" of forcing people.

A certain Paul Preston asserts that eating English beef is safe. Tapp should provide Preston with a copy of The Jakarta Post (March 29, l996, page 16). Probably after having read that British beef now treated like dangerous drug, Preston will stop talking nonsense.

Tapp stated that "Only 50 people have been affected by BSE." It's more than evident that this statistical information refers only to the English population. What about the remaining population of countries which have imported British beef?

PIERO RONCI

Jakarta