In 1996, BSE or Mad Cow Disease spread food hysteria across the Continent, as 10 people died from a new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that was linked to contaminated beef. At one point, epidemiologists from Imperial College, London, predicted that vCJD could kill millions. So far, 139 have died, just a handful of them outside the U.K. The crisis is one of the most potent examples of how science can get risk wrong. A...
