Novel puts conspiracy spin on BSE

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Published: September 8, 2005

The BSE crisis in Canada was a result of a conspiracy by the United States, according to a novel written by an Edmonton man.

While Roger Adkin doesn’t really believe the Americans corrupted a Canadian official to inject prions into the brain of a Canadian cow, causing BSE, he thinks it makes a gripping story.

He is hoping others agree and will buy Bull, printed this summer by Morgan Valley Publications of Edmonton under his pen name of Jackson Carter.

“A certain percentage of farmers say that it could have happened. Others say, ‘how could you go out on a limb and write that extreme? It’ll stir the pot even more,’ ” said Adkins about the response to the novel from his Manitoba cattle farming family.

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One fact that did spark Adkin’s conspiracy theme was that several Asian countries had closed their borders to U.S. beef in 2001 because of BSE found in a cow in Japan that it claimed came from the United States.

The Americans never confirmed or denied that. But the U.S. lost $1 billion worth of sales and from 2001-03 went from controlling 17 percent of the world market in cattle trading to seven percent.

Oprah Winfrey publicly proclaimed that U.S. beef wasn’t safe and domestic sales dropped.

Adkins found enough of an economic motive in that to spin his story, especially when he considered the real world example of Americans reacting with trade penalties to Canadian hogs, wheat and softwood lumber.

“I’ve had a few calls from people in Arizona who want to buy the book. I don’t know why. I suspect Americans won’t like it because it paints them in a negative light.”

Although Adkin has no plans to make a sequel to Bull, he has had talks about turning it into a made-for-TV movie.

And he is at work on another novel specifically for the American audience. It’s about fear of a new plague, mixing the reality of nanobugs used to take the water out of jet fuel being fictitiously changed to live and spread on U.S. dollar bills.

Adkin was directed by his U.S. agent to start writing books with American settings to sell them. He agreed for this new book, saying only one percent of all North American writers make money.

“I’m not giving up my daytime job,” said Adkin, who does research work for Environment Canada.

About the author

Diane Rogers

Saskatoon newsroom

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