Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mnhnhyouh]

So I have been trying to understand the whole mad cow thing. I have been doing some reading, first about CJD, and vCJD, and prions, and finally Korean susceptibility to this disease.

I read the op-ed piece about this in today's Korea Herald, and thought the genetic thing was probably bogus, so went searching, and then hit the papers. There are two, both with the lead author in common, both with big lists of authors (as genetic papers tend to have) and both in quality journals.

Links here

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v13/n9/full/5201460a.html#bib24

http://springerlink.metapress.com/content/51h1j81h80hjrdtf/

It is the second of these papers that has the evidence, limited though it is, unfortunatly I can only find the abstract. Here is the last line in the abstract:

[Easter Clark]

My gf said that Koreans are more susceptible to the disease because of Korean genes. I asked her if she was sure Koreans were human!

Actually, I think the reason Koreans are maybe more likely to get the disease is because they eat the parts of the cow that we would normally throw away, like the brains, organs, and backbones.

[Yu_Bum_suk]

Didn't the Korean professor who wrote the article live in the US for a while where he regularly ate US beef?

[howie2424]

The actual author of the paper which suggested a genetic susceptibility to the disease was Prof. Yong-Sun Kim of Hallym University. If I understand the situation correctly, it was his paper that was cited in the TV documentary that incited the present hysteria over US beef import resumption. When the TV show aired he was out of the country and returned last Friday to a waiting throng of Korean reporters. When asked about his paper he said this;

"Genetics is a factor, but we cannot conclude that genes alone can determine the cause of a disease. It will take more time. A comparative study is also necessary. Just because 94 per cent of Koreans have MM genotype, it is too dangerous to talk about risk." When asked why his paper was being cited as support for the argument that Koreans were more susceptible to the disease Prof. Kim said "I am very perplexed by the situation."

Now I'm no scientist and I don't claim to understand what these guys are talking about but based on the above Prof. Kim, the guy in the know about this seems to be saying that this is just a theory based on anecdotal evidence and further research is necessary before any reliable conclusions can be drawn. Not that empirical evidence or sound science will get in the way of, or otherwise concern the millions of lemmings here who fret about US beef that they never consume while puffing away on their 25th smoke of the day.

Wish I could find a link to the actual interview with him from last Saturday's Joong Ang Ilbo but these links summarize his remarks.


http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2008/05/123_24077.html

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200805/200805090017.html

[mnhnhyouh]

[Cornfed]

On the face of it, it seems strange to draw any conclusions on the heritability of a disease when no-one really knows the cause. The popular theory is that it is caused by a protein in a mutant conformation - a "prion". This seems like far fetched nonsense to me. A more plausable cause might be a sarcoplasmic bacterial infection, in which case genetics probably plays little part.

[doggyji]