By I have long pointed out the hypocrisy of the mad cow issue in Korea, but here is yet another article proving this:
South Korea is likely to be categorized by an international animal health-governing body as a controlled-risk country for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as mad cow disease, the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said Sunday.
A livestock technical committee at the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said last week that the country could see its classification upgraded after meeting livestock control and testing standards, ministry officials said.
The committee decision will be open to be reviewed by OIE member countries for 60 days, before earning the final confirmation from the body in May if no objections are raised. With the controlled risk status, Korea will be able to export beef with few restrictions.
The farm ministry said Korea is likely to be granted the green light on cattle control this time around.
“It is still possible the country will not get it in the case a serious objection is raised on a scientific basis, but such cases are very rare,” an official said.
Even though the designation doesn’t lead to an immediate rise in beef exports, it will still make the global community realize that the country is monitoring its livestock in a safe way, he added.
The Paris-based organization classifies cattle population of a country into three categories: negligible BSE risk, controlled BSE risk or undetermined BSE risk.
South Korea is currently rated as an undetermined BSE risk, because although it has had no reported cases of the disease, it didn’t carry out the required number of tests on livestock. [Korea Times]
3:58 am on March 15th, 2010 1
What is the hypocrisy you pointed out? The Lee government and the massive throng of chinboista protesters who were using what they perceived to be his kowtowing to Bush on this issue to effect the impeachment and ouster of Lee were of very different minds and actions on this.
I'm not so certain the government was all that hypocritical on the issue of Mad Cow — not much more than Japan and Mexico and other countries that also stopped imports of American beef for the exact same reason. If you're talking about the chinboista candlelight vigilantes being mired in hypocrisy, I don't know how prudent it is to extrapolate South Korea's vocal fringe to being representative of South Korea as a whole.
At any rate, this is a more complicated issue than most realize, and it's unfortunate that the vocal fringe got ahold of it so they could oust President Lee. Presidents Bush and Obama, in fact, hurt America's case and deceived the American people about it: a whopping five thousand people die each year of food-borne illness in America (see here), while 76 million are sickened by it. Yet most Americans are blissfully unaware of this and they believe — as Obama says — that America's under-inspected, over-drugged, over-hormoned, factory-farmed beef is "the safest in the world."
8:41 am on March 15th, 2010 2
In a nation of over 300,000,000 people, unfortunate as it is, 76,000 is a very low number.
8:43 am on March 15th, 2010 3
should have read : "In a nation of over 300,000,000 people, unfortunate as it is, 5,000 is a very low number.
8:44 am on March 15th, 2010 4
But 76 million is a pretty big number.
8:48 am on March 15th, 2010 5
And out of those 76 million, many cases of contamination are the consumers fault. Cases such as salmonella make up a large part of that im sure and mostly that can be attributed to the consumer not taking proper measures to sanitize the preperation area or undercooking the food.
9:10 am on March 15th, 2010 6
Nice try, but that's misleading. One used to be able to consume raw meat and raw eggs — steak tartare — without a high degree of worry about such food poisoning.
Factory farming leads to conditions that lead to more infections, and we fight it with increasing amounts of antibiotics which in turn makes antibiotic-resistant superbugs. Against the FDA's and AMA's recommendations, the Bush administration approved usage of last-line-of-defense antibiotics to be used in cattle.
Our beef is too cheap and we eat too much of it because it doesn't reflect the price of the externalities, which among them as billions of dollars in medical costs and death.
You have been lulled into believing that this must be all the patients' fault, not the meat manufacturers, and that 5000 deaths is acceptable.
9:13 am on March 15th, 2010 7
You also forget that the food-borne illnesses like e. coli, though they are coming from the factory farmed meat industry, are infecting the vegetable supply because of spillage from their factory farms.
Why are cattle and pig feces ending up in our spinach?
11:19 am on March 15th, 2010 8
So US beef is dangerous after all. And they were telling everybody how safe it is.
11:27 am on March 15th, 2010 9
To be fair, Mad Cow Disease is not a major problem with beef, not anymore anyway.
11:46 am on March 15th, 2010 10
Not long ago, there was a big uproar over tomatoes being the culprit in a wave of salmonella which nearly destroyed the U.S. farmers that grew it in the witch hunt that followed.
The eventual culprit ended up being jalapeño peppers from Mexico.
Life is risky no matter which way you look at it. And if people really wanted to get serious about what they eat, they can always start growing their own food and raising their own grass-fed, and free-range, animals.
11:54 am on March 15th, 2010 11
Yes, life is risky everywhere, but that doesn't mean that every risk is acceptable.
How did salmonella, a pathogenic bacterium occurring primarily in animal intestines, end up on jalapeños?
(The fact that they're from Mexico does not absolve American corporations.)
12:02 pm on March 15th, 2010 12
I wasn't talking about Mad Cow. I was talking about how unsafe it is with other diseases and chemical injections.
1:00 pm on March 15th, 2010 13
Compared to Korean beef, yes it is a lot safer. So is the chicken. When is the last time the U.S. has had a bird lfu scare compared to the annual ones that Korea has.
1:10 pm on March 15th, 2010 14
A lot safer? Can you show us a citation or link or something to support your claim about American versus Korean beef? I'm inclined to think neither one of them is that safe, so even if you're "a lot safer" comment holds water, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement.
The lack of massive poultry culls in the US may be about as credible as Toyota's lack of recalls until last year.
It also may be a reflection, in part, of the prophylactic pumping of antibiotics into chickens, a dangerous commercial activity that threatens our health but boosts the bottom line for poultry producers.
7:31 pm on March 15th, 2010 15
Kushibo, like so many others you have been brainwashed into believing the worst about American beef. Sure, you didn't burn the American flag or riot in the streets over American beef, but, in the end, you believed what was said about it by the Left. That's a shame.
7:39 pm on March 15th, 2010 16
Oh, and if you don't like it then don't buy it. That's what comes from being in a free country where consumers are supposed to have choices. But telling others they can't have the choice to buy it only hurts consumers, including yourself, as prices skyrocket.
10:06 pm on March 15th, 2010 17
Costs 6$ to test a cow for BSE…How much does 100g of Korean beef cost again? Yeah, it's such a complicated issue.
10:53 pm on March 15th, 2010 18
Brazilian beef is the solution. NO MAD COW DECEASE !!!!
The problem is that the USA threatens Korea with commercial retaliation if Korea buys Brazilian beef, and that's sad because Korea could trade beef with frigates, KTX and also sign strategic commercial treaties with them if we open our beef market for them, but the USA ….
3:18 am on March 16th, 2010 19
If you think the Mad Cow vigilantes affected my thinking in any way, then you are being clueless.
I've been looking into this stuff as a layperson from long ago, when I was wondering why little kids were dying after eating at Burger King.
It is you who is brainwashed into thinking everything's okay, we've got the best in the world. Our own government reports — if you can find them — show otherwise.
Sadly, though, archieb, it's not as simple as "if you don't like it, don't buy it." Shit runoff from factory farmed beef puts e. coli into the vegetable supply. It sucks up water in drought-stricken states like California, and it creates drug resistance issues that affect everyone whether they consume beef or not.
See the problem with that logic is that we're all paying the externalities, whether we consume cheap beef or not.
And I don't mind beef. I love cheeseburgers and I like a good steak every now and then. But we consume too much of it because they've made it artificially cheap by stripping away the externalities when we pay in the supermarket. But we do pay for these in the end.
3:29 am on March 16th, 2010 20
Brazilian beef is not the solution. To produce Brazilian beef (and American beef, Mexican beef, and possibly Korean and Australian beef), huge swaths of rain forest are torn down to raise not just the beef cattle themselves but also the soybeans they now use to fatten them up quickly.
The problem is not beef itself. The problem is that Big Agriculture has found "short cuts" to making beef faster on a massive scale — feeding the cows things like corn and soybeans they wouldn't normally eat which causes health problems that are "worked around" with massive antibiotics, anbitiotics, cement dust, etc. — and we are paying the price for it through external costs, higher health care costs from food-borne illness, depleted rainforest, antibiotic-resistant infections, etc., etc.
Beef is not the problem. Unnatural cheap beef is the problem.
3:38 am on March 16th, 2010 21
But Korea…
Again, where were all the Korean hyopcrites protesting all that Chilean tainted pork? That posed a serious and immediate threat to Korean's health. Where the protesters Yu and other's? Please tell me. No excuses please, just tell me where they were?
Yes, obviously there are some serious problems in the US and elsewhere with food safety. This can not be denied and must be changed.
Funny, lots of Korean-Americans and those worthy of the label of gyopo draft dodgers have been eating US beef for years.
For MANY years Korean cars were always at the bottom of the list for safety, they still are compared to most Asian models, but did you see people in other countries protesting in the streets against Korea?
Shit, do you see thousands of people in the US and other countries in the streets protesting now against Toyota?
Of course, I'm prepared for the "ugly American" thing because it's ok for Korean nationals to be nationalistic, but not for anyone else to be, especially an American.
If the US were not in the picture, it would be only a matter of time before they start blaming someone else for something else, their history proves that.
In the end, let's not forget Korea's own little track record with food safety over the years.
Frozen mandu anyone?
4:20 am on March 16th, 2010 22
Yup, totally agree.
Also, as far as I know, all cattle farmers have to give the animals at least some antibiotics. It's pretty hard to escape from.
5:05 am on March 16th, 2010 23
I think the hypocrasy he's reffering to is how the Korean people demanded a ban on US beef imports, citing food safety issues linked to an inadequate inspection process, yet never bothered to look into their own beef industry pratices, which were just as bad, if not worse, than in the US.
And it wasn't just the "vocal fringe" as you would have us believe. EVERY Korean person (without exception) I talked to at the time, supported a ban on US beef and some went as far as to say that they believed the US was trying to intentionally kill Koreans with tainted beef.
Now, I know I didn't speak to every single Korean alive, but I did speak to many dozens of people, from all walks of life, from Seoul to Jejudo regarding Mad Cow. The "vocal fringe" may adequately describe those who tried to use the beef issue as a tool to impeach LMB, but from my observations, a ban on US beef (based on false information) enjoyed far greater support throughout Korean society.
11:30 am on March 16th, 2010 24
There actually were a lot of <a href="http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=칠레+FTA+반대&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8" rel="nofollow">protests and other NGO actions against the Chilean FTA. They somewhat predated the blogosphere's heyday, so they didn't get much play.
The chinboistas are anti-corporate as well as anti-US, so they were opposed to the Chilean FTA.
Why wouldn't the same NGOs protest against tainted Chilean pork? Well, if the government already banned import, what is the reason to protest?
And yes, some of the groups also protest against their own government's food safety efforts when they're seen as shoddy. That doesn't get as much play in the K-blogs as protests against US beef, nor does it interest the chinboistas as much because it doesn't give them a chance to paint the Korean president as a stooge of the US for ending a ban that Japan and Mexico both kept up, only for a vague promise of letting the FTA go through.
11:35 am on March 16th, 2010 25
"The Korean people" (as if all speak as one) didn't demand a ban so much as they were critical of President Lee for ending a ban that Japan and Mexico still kept in place, solely as leverage for an FTA that many on the left feel is detrimental to Korea.
Go and read that chinboista link, please. The anti-corporate, anti-US, anti-government, anti-Japan chinboista group is constantly looking for issues that will resonate with the wider public that is distrustful of the chinboistas' motives so that they can find the critical mass they achieved in 1960 and 1987.
Food safety, particularly when the president seems to be selling it out for corporate interests, was one of those that seemed like it might work.
2:16 pm on March 16th, 2010 26
Please, don't try to make it seem as though I was implying all Korean people think alike. That's just dishonest of you. If you read my comment in its entirety, with any degree of impartiallity, you'd see what I meant was "a large portion of Korean society".
The Korean govn't lifted a ban on US beef (based on real science) and a large portion of Korean society DEMANDED that the ban be reinstated (based on lies and innuendos).
I don't know about Mexico, but in the case of Japan, though I don't agree with the continued ban, I can somewhat understand their position. They demanded that all cattle be tested (as was the norm for the Japanese beef industry) before allowing imports to resume. And again, that's where Korea's hypocrasy shone bright. Demanding more of the US than they required of themselves.
2:55 pm on March 16th, 2010 27
Oh, and you're conflating two seperate issues: Mad Cow disease with food contamination in the US. Or are you seriously implying that Mad Cow was responsible for over 5,000 deaths and 76 million cases of food poisoning in the US?
Look, the US certainly has problems regarding food contamination (as do most countries). But let's not forget that with the Mad Cow fiasco in Korea the core issue was a misinformed belief that imported US beef was at high risk of being BSE infected, despite the scientific evidence to the contrary.
3:38 pm on March 16th, 2010 28
Mechodyta, I'm not conflating the two issues. I'm making a point that there are actually a lot of health issues related to American beef that is factory farmed (and other countries', including Korea insofar as it follows the same practices) and I think it's unfortunate that the people hammering on that issue were not doing so because of health concerns but as a way of whipping up the public in order to oust the president.
Please reread my opening statement above and my chinboistas link in that context.
BSE and these other health problems are related in that they are both the direct byproducts of factory farming that puts profits above the health of the consumer.
Turning cows into cannibals… what was the point of that?
4:53 pm on March 16th, 2010 29
There are health safety issues regarding US beef. Ok, I get that. Different diseases can be linked. I get that, too. But what does that have to do with BSE (the impetus for Mad Cow Madness)? Are you saying that BSE is a significant problem in the US beef industry? If you are, then there are some scientist at the WHO who might disagree with you.
And, if Koreans were truely concerned about the beef they consumed, they should have scrutinized their own beef industry more carefully. If they had, they would have found the same problems as (and in some cases worse than) those in the US.
8:39 pm on March 16th, 2010 30
Oh, when was that Korean protest against melamine in Chinese products? Oh, yesh, try the first of NEVER.
8:56 pm on March 16th, 2010 31
Oh, you got me on that one. Because when the melamine was discovered in Chinese food products, the president reversed the ban already in place on Chinese food products, right?
Oh, wait. My bad. The ROK government banned all Chinese food products containing powdered milk, so um, what would there be to protest about?
8:42 pm on March 17th, 2010 32
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