While one in every five American adults - 21 per cent - say that fear of mad cow disease will change their eating habits, 78 per cent of these people said they would eat less beef, and 16 per cent of them indicate that they will stop eating beef altogether, according to results of a recent Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive Health-Care Poll.
The US government announcement of the first reported US case of mad cow disease just before Christmas sent shivers through the €21 billion US cattle industry and led to immediate bans on US beef imports from more than two dozen nations, which accounted for about $3.2 billion in annual sales.
According to the survey, a sizeable majority - 88 per cent - has confidence in the Bush government, believing that the powers that be will take the necessary steps to avoid the spread of mad cow disease in the US.
But opinions are split as to whether the government's rules for feeding cattle and inspecting beef have been too lax or were sufficient. Implying that the country definitely needs to tighten food safety measures. Nearly 50 per cent of respondents thought that the government's rules were too lax or lenient.
"If the people who believe they will eat less beef actually do so, beef sales will take a serious short-term hit, and sales of poultry, lamb, pork and fish will rise," said Humphrey Taylor, chairman of The Harris Poll at Harris Interactive that conducted the relatively small survey - 2,378 adults - online.
The study findings will do little to reassure an industry that has lost nearly the entirety of its export market, translated into sharply lower cattle prices and layoffs at some US meat plants.
The US media reports this week that American exports in 2004 are forecast to slide to just 220 million pounds, down from a previous forecast of 2.6 billion pounds. Production is unchanged at 25.5 billion pounds.
US beef plants operated by Cargill and Tyson Foods have already slashed jobs because of the trade ban. Cargill said it laid off between 500 and 750 workers at five plants, while Tyson said it had axed 40 jobs.
Also known as BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy), mad cow disease is linked to the deadly variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in humans from which about 130 people have died, mostly in Britain.