[Mad cow disease: 20 years after]

Mad cow disease: 20 years after. Twenty years after the peak of the mad cow disease crisis, an overview was made by the National Food Council about the public health consequences, scientific advances, management measures taken to control the disease, persistent uncertainty about long-term impact on human health, and the difficulty to communicate in such a critical context. An in depth work to follow and explain the evolution of food production and transformation methods is indispensable. In a critical phase, the expression of the multiple actors requires to be made as coherent and coordinated as possible.