"I think it's important that, as a matter of course, the brain and spinal column were removed from this cow, and that would be the material that would cause concern in terms of human health. And therefore we're confident in the safety of the food supply"
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Veneman’s sentence has the antiseptic cadence of crisis management: procedural, technical, and deliberately soothing. The striking move is how quickly it reroutes disgust into reassurance. “As a matter of course” is doing heavy political labor. It frames an extraordinary, headline-ready act (removing a cow’s brain and spinal column) as routine sanitation, implying the system already anticipated the threat. The phrase isn’t just informational; it’s reputational. It tells the public: adults are in charge, protocols exist, panic is unnecessary.
Her word choice also compartmentalizes fear. The “material that would cause concern” isn’t named as disease, prions, or “mad cow” contagion. It’s “material,” a bureaucratic euphemism that abstracts away the vivid horror of neurological tissue and the public’s latent revulsion. That abstraction is strategic: naming the specter gives it oxygen. By keeping it clinical, Veneman tries to keep the story from metastasizing.
Then comes the pivot to collective confidence: “therefore we’re confident in the safety of the food supply.” The logic is syllogistic on purpose. If the risky parts are removed, the system holds. The subtext, though, is less about science than legitimacy. This is a public servant speaking into a trust deficit, where the real contagion is doubt: doubt in regulators, in industry oversight, in whether contamination is an exception or a symptom. The reassurance aims to stabilize markets and dinner tables at once, converting a visceral image into a bureaucratic promise: the danger has been localized, contained, and rendered governable.
Her word choice also compartmentalizes fear. The “material that would cause concern” isn’t named as disease, prions, or “mad cow” contagion. It’s “material,” a bureaucratic euphemism that abstracts away the vivid horror of neurological tissue and the public’s latent revulsion. That abstraction is strategic: naming the specter gives it oxygen. By keeping it clinical, Veneman tries to keep the story from metastasizing.
Then comes the pivot to collective confidence: “therefore we’re confident in the safety of the food supply.” The logic is syllogistic on purpose. If the risky parts are removed, the system holds. The subtext, though, is less about science than legitimacy. This is a public servant speaking into a trust deficit, where the real contagion is doubt: doubt in regulators, in industry oversight, in whether contamination is an exception or a symptom. The reassurance aims to stabilize markets and dinner tables at once, converting a visceral image into a bureaucratic promise: the danger has been localized, contained, and rendered governable.
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| Topic | Health |
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