What are the real risks of contracting a disease. Sometimes people worry about the wrong things. The whole US beef ban in South Korea and limited market in Japan is all due to <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym> and the fears that people will contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease from it. So what's the real chance of getting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease? According to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/06/14/healthmag.diseases/index.html" >this story</a> the chances are 1 in 10 billion. If you play the Powerball lottery, you have a much greater chance of that, 1 in 146 million, than of contracting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. So why are people so afraid of it?<br />n<br />nFear of the unknown I guess. The article explains the risks of real things to be worried about. Heart disease, osteoporosis and breast cancer. Real things to be concerned about, not variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. <br />n<br />nAnother thought this leads me to, why does the government want American farmers and ranchers to spend billions of dollars on the <acronym title="National Animal Identification System">NAIS</acronym> program for a disease, <acronym title="Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy">BSE</acronym>, that the chances of a person getting are so slim? Isn't this an awful big maul to kill such a little fly?<br />n<br />nIn simple words, "Don't worry about the small shit."<br />n<br />n<strong>The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work. Robert Frost</strong><br />n<br />