The Power of Influence: Oprah Winfrey Vs. Texas Cattle Ranchers

Howard Lyman: "One hundred thousand cows per years in the US are fine at night, dead in the morning. The majority of those cows are rounded, group, up turned into feed and fed back to other animals..."

Oprah: "Are they feeding cattle to cattle?"

Dr. Weber: "There is a limited amount of that done in the United States."

(Mad Cow, 1996)

The above was part of the transcript from the Oprah Winfrey show on Dangerous Foods which aired on April 16, 1996.

Oprah has millions upon millions of fans throughout the world and when she makes a statement it is heard loud and clear, in other words what Oprah says, goes. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion she just has the means and the ability to let hers be heard.

They very next day after she made this statement the cattle industry was hit hard, their prices plummeted because they believed that because of what she said consumers would cut back on purchasing beef.

Oprah wasn't trying to bash the cattle industry for her own gain, she was doing what was right she felt that Americans needed to know this information and was just acting as a concerned consumer and being the voice for the millions of other consumers that our out their purchasing beef products everyday. (Mad Cow, 1996)

The cattle ranchers of Texas were able to sue Oprah under the food disparagement law which allows them to do so when a person makes a claim about the food which they know is false. They accused her of causing the cattle market to drop which cost them $12 million. (The Beef Against Oprah, 1998) But was Oprah to blame for the falling pricings?

Yes it may have made a contribution but there is no concrete evidence, there were other items that were leading up to this. When Oprah aired the show on mad cow disease cattlemen were suffering through high feed prices, a drought, and oversupply.