Media Reports

[Report from Taoyuan] Recently, when the Province was under attack from a severe cold front, volunteers from Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association, under the guidance of Supreme Master Ching Hai, launched an extensive activity to convey warmth in the cold winter, in various towns and villages in north and south Taoyuan County.

Braving the severe cold, electric heaters, blankets and other necessities were delivered to destitute households in urgent need. Their action filled the community with warmth, and touched people's hearts.

In the past few days, a cold front pervaded Formosa. As the Chinese New Year is coming, the poor in many places are bracing themselves and preparing to suffer a cold winter. Many charitable groups have joined the "Conveying Warmth In The Cold Winter" activity, thus allowing the needy families to have a happy Lunar New Year.

Among these groups, volunteers of the International Association led by Supreme Master Ching Hai repeated their usual practice and delivered electric heaters, blankets, nutritious food and other necessities to underprivileged households in the towns and villages in north and south Taoyuan County as the Chinese New Year approaches. These families were facing starvation because of sudden disasters or other mishaps.

According to the volunteers from the International Association, most of these poor people did not qualify, or could not get the subsistence allowance in a short time due to the complicated procedures of screening low income families by the relevant authority, or because they encountered sudden mishaps.

Therefore, the International Association, seeing another's hunger as their hunger, and another's drowning is their drowning, promptly provided the necessary money and materials to ease their difficult situations. They worked silently, liaising between the government and the applicants in urgent need.

Volunteers from the International Association also said that they launched this "Conveying Warmth In The Cold Winter" activity in order to motivate other individuals and groups in society to join this charitable action.

It's tough been a beef eater in Britain. TV images of demented, wobbly -legged cattle--victims of a lethal illness dubbed mad-cow disease--have invaded living rooms since 1986. But government officials insisted that the disease was no threat to humans. With such assurances, beef remains on most dinner tables, and the disease returned to the back burner of Britain's concerns.

Not anymore, nine years after scientists first identified bovine spongiform encephalopathy, publics fear that the mysterious BSE agent might infecting humans have reached a fever pitch. Two Britain teenagers died--in April and August--of a brain-devouring ailment eerily similar to BSE. Called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, this nasty human malady has been around for decades: It killed choreographer George Balanchine in 1983. But it normally afflicts only tiny numbers of middle-aged and elderly people. In Britain, however, CJD fatalities not are only occurring among the young, but have doubled NO MORE LIVER. Such scary statistics have raised fears that BSE can pass from cattle to humans. The government already bans the use in foodstuffs of cow brains and certain other organs, in which BSE is most apt to lurk. Now, some top Britain scientists and doctors want the ban extended to additional organs. European farmers are asking their government to halt imports of Britain beef. And thousands on English schools have removed beef from lunch menus.

Other countries, including the U.S., share Britain's concerns.

Livers, brains and other organs scientists says, may harbor the infectious agent--believed to be the rogue protein called a prion. Such proteins, which contain no DNA but nevertheless seem to propagate in organs and brains, are deactivated by cooking. Worse, there are no vaccines or cures for the diseases they cause.

This much is known about the Britain epidemic: Cattle were probably afflicted after being fed ground sheep carcasses infected with scrapie, a sheep disease similar to BSE. In 1988, after cow started dying, the government banned the use of cattle and sheep in animal feed and ordered the slaughter of any beast with BSE symptoms. But seven years and 150,000 BSE cases later; 300 cows a week coming down with the disease. Most perplexing: Cattle born after 1988, witch preSupreme Master bly didn't infected feed, have contracted the disease.

BUM STEER. The European Union also has banned the feeding of cow and sheep carcasses to animals. But the U.S. has not done so, complains Richard F. Marsh, a University of Wisconsin animal-health professor, despite many cases of sheep scrapie.

The seeming increase in CJD may result from better reporting of cases. But Sheila Gore, a biostatistician at Britain's medical Research Council, says more worrisome the deaths of the two teenagers. There have been only four other recorded cases of CJD among teens in Europe and the U.S. Still, given the long incubation period for the disease, "it's going to be many years before the we know if human health has been compromised," says Dr. Will Patterson, a British public-health specialist.