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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:25 pm Post subject: Something good comes from all the MCD protests |
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Korea has ramped up its own testing.
http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2893786
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In a fortified lab in Suwon, Gyeonggi, Shim Hang-sub, a veterinarian, examines a cow�s brain he took from a slaughterhouse in the same province. He slices the organ and puts it in reagents to watch the biochemical reactions. It takes four to five hours for them to fully appear. The test shows whether or not the cow was infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease.
Shim, an employee of Gyeonggi�s Livestock and Veterinary Service, is in charge of testing for the disease. The brains he collects come from so-called downer cattle, which means the animals are too sick to stand or walk. In May, the government began requiring that all downer cows be examined, in an effort to toughen safety standards for cattle raised on Korean soil. The country�s veterinary services now test all downer cows for mad cow disease. The candlelight vigils of the last few months became a wake-up call for the government to pay more attention to the safety of beef not only from the United States but also from domestic cattle.
Demonstrators blocked streets in central Seoul, some wielding metal pipes, to protest reopening of the local beef market, but they seldom questioned the safety of Korean beef. But is it really safe?
Not many know that Korea has not yet obtained a controlled-risk status for BSE, though the government said there has been no outbreak of mad cow disease here. This is a curious oversight, considering that even the U.S. acquired the status last year. American beef was banned in Korea following an outbreak of mad cow disease in the U.S. in 2003. To obtain the status, which is granted by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), the country accumulates points by running tests similar to what Shim does every day.
According to the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service tested a total of 18,855 cows between 1996 and 2006 and 8,368 cows in 2007. Korea earned 108,847 points in the process - 0.01 point is earned for inspecting a healthy cow and up to 750 points are added for examining a sick cow. The OIE requirement to earn the status is 240,000 points, meaning Korea is far from having enough. The government said it wants to achieve controlled-risk status by 2010.
�The World Organization for Animal Health changed its point system in May 2005 so that higher points can be earned from examining sick cows,� said Oh Soon-min, director of the agriculture ministry�s animal quarantine team. Oh explained that Korea had tested mostly healthy cows through sampling and this is why it has not yet earned enough points. The government, however, started focusing on sick cows in 2007 to accumulate points faster. Another reason for the change is growing public concern over downer cows.
After the airing of MBC�s �PD Diary� investigative program on mad cow disease in April, many people came to believe that there is a strong connection between mad cow disease and downer cows, though this is not necessarily true.
�There are four prevalent causes for cows to be unable to stand or walk - injury, hard labor [in calving], paralysis after labor and bloat. There are many other diseases that leave cows unable to walk and they are unrelated to mad cow disease,� said Seo Sang-kyo, head of the Gyeonggi Provincial Office�s livestock division. �Cows that show signs of those diseases were excluded from the brain inspection.�
Thus, in the past, only downer cows that showed symptoms of mad cow disease like extreme sensitivity to light, sound and touch were inspected. According to the Agriculture Ministry, there were 3,642 downer cows in the country in 2007.
All downer cows are now supposed to be tested, but some have gone undetected and been butchered without proper inspection.
In July, Cheonan police arrested three people and indicted 19 others without detention for illegally butchering 174 sick cows and selling the beef for 2.7 billion ($2.6 million) in 2006. Local shops bought the beef knowing it was from sick cows.
�Diseased or dead cows must be inspected by veterinarians before they are butchered,� said Lee Yeol, a senior policeman at the Cheonan Police Station. The Gangwon Provincial Police Agency also arrested three people for butchering and selling a dead cow.
Critics say mad cow disease is undetected in Korea because there are not enough tests. �More than 600,000 cows are slaughtered each year but only an average of 2,300 cows are examined annually. The sample is just too small,� said Woo Hee-jong, a veterinary professor at Seoul National University.
�Judgment over whether Korea is free from mad cow disease needs to be reserved until there is valid evidence from sufficient tests,� he said.
The Association of Veterinarians for Public Health also recently called on the government to test all downer cattle for mad cow disease.
However, Woo acknowledged there is a much smaller possibility for mad cow disease occurring in Korea than elsewhere in the world due to Koreans� dietary habits. Koreans eat cattle�s internal organs and boil cow bones to make soup. So after human consumption, there is little cow meat or bone left for feed. Mad cow disease is known to be caused by recycling diseased animal protein in cattle feed.
But there is still risk of exposure from overseas. There is a chance imported beef could cause infection in humans, and imported animal protein feed could infect cattle here. In 1996 Korea banned feeds with animal protein produced from cattle. It also prohibited feeding ruminant [cud-chewing] animals with animal protein feed produced from other ruminants in 2001. Beginning in September, all animal protein feed will be banned for cattle, except for feed made from fish.
This does not mean that domestic cattle are completely safe from eating animal protein feed produced from cow meat and bones.
The government denied that it imported animal protein feed until Korea was named as one of the importers of animal protein feed exported from once-BSE plagued Britain.
The Independent newspaper reported on Dec. 11, 2000 that even after Britain banned the use of meat and bone meal from slaughtered cows in cattle feed in 1988, the product was still exported, including to Korea.
Farmer Lee Hyung-bok, who has been in the cattle business for over 30 years, said he has never heard of animal protein being used in cattle feed.
�Ordinary farmers would not know because feed is blended before it is sold. Only the Agriculture Ministry would know.� Lee said. |
Good news. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 2:37 pm Post subject: |
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Yes, that is good news.
Last week, PD Diary was forced to apologize to the country. It wasn't very sincere, but it's a start. I think a lot of the public learned to be a bit more skeptical of what they see on TV. |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:00 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="Ya-ta Boy"]Last week, PD Diary was forced to apologize to the country. It wasn't very sincere, but it's a start.[/url]
Very cool. Do you happen to know what their wording was?
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| I think a lot of the public learned to be a bit more skeptical of what they see on TV. |
Sure hope that lasts! |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:25 pm Post subject: |
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I looked, but the article describing the apology has been taken down. There is this, though:
It is going to take more than a simple minute-and-a-half apology and the dismissal of two production staff to absolve MBC from the guilt of spreading mad cow hysteria and damaging the image of Korea. What must take place is a thorough investigation of how the facts ended up being distorted and exaggerated. We should not trust MBC to conduct this investigation, since it has refused to do it so far. Just as the KCSC asked the Korean Society for Journalism and Communication Studies to deliberate on the objectivity of the broadcasts focusing on the motion to impeach former president Roh Moo-hyun, so a panel of outside experts should deliberate on the mad cow broadcasts.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200808/200808140022.html |
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rebel_1812
Joined: 17 May 2008
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:39 pm Post subject: |
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[quote="CentralCali"]
| Ya-ta Boy wrote: |
Last week, PD Diary was forced to apologize to the country. It wasn't very sincere, but it's a start.[/url]
Very cool. Do you happen to know what their wording was?
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| I think a lot of the public learned to be a bit more skeptical of what they see on TV. |
Sure hope that lasts! |
I doubt it. Things are not going to change. The media will still put out lies that demonize everything not korean and the korean people will still believe it. Why? Because the korean people want to believe that everything not korean is bad. |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 3:57 pm Post subject: |
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| I doubt it. Things are not going to change. |
You remind me of Dylan's song "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"
When you're lost in the rain in Juarez
And its Eastertime too
And your gravity fails
And negativity don't pull you through...
What do you do when your negativity fails?
Under your avatar it says you joined here in May of this year. Just how much experience in Korea have you had that justifies your claim to understand Korea and Koreans? |
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CentralCali
Joined: 17 May 2007
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Well, he might not have much experience here, calendrically (so to speak), but he might have a point. After all, look at how many people in Korea believe that US military are immunie from prosecution in a Korean court although there are US servicemembers serving time in Korean jails! |
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Frankly Mr Shankly
Joined: 13 Feb 2008
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Something good coming from the Anti-(U.S) beef protests? I thought you were going to report on the collapse of the Han-Mi FTA and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from this godforsaken rock, as well as the incarceration of Hanchonryon and their fascist paramilitary goons. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Sun Aug 17, 2008 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Frankly Mr Shankly wrote: |
| Something good coming from the Anti-(U.S) beef protests? I thought you were going to report on the collapse of the Han-Mi FTA and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from this godforsaken rock, as well as the incarceration of Hanchonryon and their fascist paramilitary goons. |
I said 'good', not 'fantastic'. |
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