News - Montreal - canada.com network

"[I]t was revealed that DNA tests in Canada and the U.S. confirmed that a Washington state Holstein that tested positive for mad cow disease was born on an Alberta ranch. "

Yes that mad cow was Canadian. What burned me about the earlier treatment of this story was that the mad cow was only possibly Canadian, yet the press went after it with a feeding frenzy. Suddenly all of Canada was under pointed suspicion.

This kind of treatment reminds me of the Carol Stuart murder when I lived back in Boston. The newspapers all but hanged a black man accused of murdering Carol Stuart, but in the end it was her husband and brother in law who set up the whole thing to collect on insurance. Sometimes, maybe even often, newspapers and news agencies do not show the kind of restraint that they need to. I include in this conclusion the recent announcement of the "suspicion" that the mad cow was from Canada.