Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, April 15, 1996, it actually took place on April 16th, an episode of the Oprah

Winfrey show airs in which the talk show host proclaims that she would no longer eat hamburgers.

This was during a segment with a man named Howard Lyman, a cattle rancher turned vegetarian

activist.

Lyman was describing a disease called bovine, spongiform, encephalopathy, which from now on I'm going to call BSE.

I will never have to say those three words again, but BSE is also known as mad cow disease. We will call it mad

cow disease from now on. It was a disease that was spreading in the UK. Millions of

cows had been ordered to be slaughtered. A number of people had died as a result of eating tainted beef,

and on the show, Lyman argued that the danger was growing in the United States,

and in response, Winfrey said, quote, this has stopped me cold from eating another burger.

On the very day the show aired, cattle futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange plunged.

That is the power of Oprah, and this incident would lead to a huge saga.

Winfrey would get sued. There was a huge high profile trial. All sorts of free speech

questions coming up around this. So a really fascinating topic here to talk about

Oprah Winfrey mad cows and the veggie libel laws are as always

Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Hello, Jody.

Hey there.

We've all been very excited to talk about this.

This has been on our list for a long time,

incredibly fascinating.

...