81.   The disease has never been found in the United States but has devastated the beef industry in Europe and spread to Japan.

82.   The European Commission said it stands ready to provide funds to help Britain shore up its beef industry and compensates farmers.

83.   The measures reinforced a global ban imposed by the European Union that has crippled the British beef industry.

84.   The scare has virtually wiped out the British beef industry.

85.   The U.S. beef industry maintains that the growth hormones, widely used in the United States to increase the size of cattle for market, are safe.

86.   Washington maintains it was an effort to protect the European beef industry from foreign competition.

87.   An Irish court Friday dismissed contempt charges against a journalist who refused to reveal her sources for a story disclosing widespread fraud in the beef industry.

88.   But the cost of rescuing the beef industry was expected to result in big cuts in other parts of the budget for agriculture, officials at the Commission said.

89.   Dealers said that if government scientists recommend wholesale slaughter of British cattle, the dairy industry and the beef industry in Britain would suffer.

90.   Their comments led to the EU export ban and a collapse in the British beef industry.