Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Captain Corea]

[Gollywog]

Oops, you are the OP.

Captain Corea wrote:

[Captain Corea]

[Gollywog]

Do you drink the water, Captain Corea?

Do you drink it out of the tap, at home, at work, while traveling within Korea?

Most Koreans don't.

Most Koreans are terrified of their own tap water.

And they are going berserk over three cows in the United States that had BSE, years ago?

Which is more likely to make them sick?

I tell you what, Captain Corea.

When Korea figures out how to make consistently safe, pleasant tasting tap water, and when Koreans trust their own country's tap water, then maybe Koreans can lecture people from other countries about sanitation and the scientific method.

When you, Captain Corea, can prove to me, without a shadow of a doubt, that every single glass of water that comes out of every single Korean tap is absolutely safe to drink, I promise to read your evidence with an open mind.

And when the Korean media asks ONE appropriate American scientific expert or government official -- from the CDC, NIH, FDA or USDA --- to comment on the Korean accusations that American beef is filled with mad cow disease, or ONE American to respond to the allegation that the American people are out to poison Koreans by selling them beef even American beggars won't eat, or ONE American supermarket to rebut the claim that Australian beef is being sold in the U.S., or ONE American farmer to respond to the fiction that American cows are raised their whole lives in filthy, muddy little pens, THEN I will consider your suggestion, Captain Corea, that the media has learned something from the mad cow protests.

Have YOU, has ANYONE seen the Korean media, or even a Korean journalist working for international media such as CNN or the New York Times, write ONE story on mad cow disease that cites an American expert?

I haven't.

NONE.

[Guri Guy]

Yikes. I had heard that the dead human bodies being ground up into cattle feed had started the whole crisis in England. This article says South Korea imported this contaminated cattle feed. It is entirely possible that infected cows could be in South Korea as we speak.


Exports of BSE-contaminated cattle feed continued for eight years after UK ban

Mad cow disease: Ministers disagreed on the 'moral obligations' towards Third World

By Paul Lashmar
Monday, 11 December 2000


Eight years after Britain banned the sale of potentially BSE-infected feed to farmers in this country, the product was still being exported.

Eight years after Britain banned the sale of potentially BSE-infected feed to farmers in this country, the product was still being exported.

South Africa, where the first non-European case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) was reported at the weekend, imported some of the British animal feed exported while it was banned here.

The South African victim, Ronel Eckard, 35, who died in July, appears to have picked up the disease from eating hamburgers. She had never travelled abroad. Suspicion must now centre on whether the meat was infected with BSE, or mad cow disease, from contaminated British feed exports.

Britain imposed a ban on using meat and bone meal (MBM) made from slaughtered cows in cattle feed in July 1988. Three months earlier government animal health experts had realised that feed made from bovine MBM was responsible for the rapid spread of BSE in Britain. But for eight more years contaminated feed was exported worldwide with what critics say was woefully inadequate warnings on the product.

Before the BSE crisis about 350,000 tons of MBM feed was sold in Britain a year, and relatively little was exported. After the ban the UK government did inform the EU, but there was a surge in exports to Europe. Then, as European states - informed of the danger - banned British feed, exporters opened up new markets, including North America, the Middle East and Asia.

Dr Stephen Dealler, a microbiologist and BSE expert, said: "It was a terrible mistake... Look at the controls they are now trying to apply to stop BSE in France and other EU countries. It is going to be much harder in African and Middle Eastern countries."

Evidence to the British BSE inquiry headed by Lord Phillips shows that British officials washed their hands of moral responsibility over the dangers of MBM spreading BSE to infection-free countries, the approach was to inform international bodies, leaving it to member states to decide whether to import UK feed and prevent it being fed to cattle.

British shipments reached 30,000 tons a year in 1993 and went on until 1996, when an EU directive banned all UK exports. The feed went to countries including Czech Republic, Nigeria, Thailand, South Africa, Kenya, Turkey, Indonesia, Hungary, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, USA, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Sri Lanka.

The Phillips inquiry reveals astonishing memos between British officials over the sale of MBM. In the Ministry of Agriculture (Maff), John Gummer, then an Agriculture minister, is reported in minutes as having said the UK had a "moral obligation to ensure that importing countries were aware we did not permit the feeding of these products to ruminants".

Alistair Cruickshank, a Maff civil servant, however, told the inquiry: "At the meeting of 14 April 1988, [John] MacGregor [then Minister of Agriculture] gave no indication he agreed with Gummer's suggestion."

In a letter dated 15 June 1989, Keith Meldrum, the chief veterinary officer, wrote to the president of the British Cattle Veterinary Association, saying: "We have discussed by telephone why we would not wish to interfere with the export of meat and bone meal from this country even if we had the powers to do so. As you will appreciate we do not consider it morally indefensible to export meat and bone to other countries since it may be used for feeding to pigs and poultry... We have ensured that all countries of the world have been informed of our problems, not only through the publication of articles, but by statements at [international] meetings."

It was not until summer 1989 that using the carcasses of animals infected with BSE to make MBM was banned.

In January 1990, Sir Donald Acheson, the chief medical officer, wrote to Mr Meldrum warning him of the dangers. "We should take steps to prevent these UK products being fed to ruminants in other countries. Unless such action is taken, the difficult problems we have faced with BSE may well occur in other countries."

In February 1990, Dr Hilary Pickles, a senior official in the Department of Health, wrote to the chief medical officer claiming that the Government's behaviour was not "responsible".

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/exports-of-bsecontaminated-cattle-feed-continued-for-eight-years-after-uk-ban-626507.html

[Guri Guy]

Scary stuff. Those cows could be very much alive now in South Korea.

Background

* There is no known cure for TSE-related diseases. Dementia and death are the end result over a period lasting anywhere from 6 months to two years after manifestation.
* Sheep have manifested a similar disease known as "Scrapie" for 200+ years. The prevailing theory is that cows contract BSE from eating feed which contains sheep by-products (organs) which are contaminated with Scrapie. Now that BSE has been found in some cows, the concern is that it may be passed on to other cows, or humans, from beef or by-products.
* The addition of by-products to animal feed has been banned to varying extents over the last several years. However, the extent of the ban varies by country. For instance, in the U.S., by-products have been banned in ruminant (cud chewing) animals since 1997. However, by-products may still be added to the feed of non-ruminant animals such as pigs and chickens. As you can imagine that's a fairly controversial distinction.
* Much of the disease may have come from dairy herds since they live longer than beef cattle and they typically would consume higher concentrations of the suspect by-products. Dairy cows yield lower quality beef which usually ends up in hamburgers and processed meats.
* It is now a near certainty that humans can develop the disease (a variation of BSE called vCJD) by eating meat from infected animals.
* The latency/ manifestation period for the disease in cattle appears to be a minimum of two years, and perhaps as much as five to six (5 - 6) years. In humans, the latency period is not known but estimates have been as long as fifteen (15) years.
* Until the disease symptoms manifest themselves it is not possible to determine from visual inspection whether animals carry the disease.
* At this time, there are no tests to determine the presence of the disease in an animal, other than tissue testing after slaughter.
* There is also speculation that the disease can be transmitted by blood transfusions. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has enacted a very basic screening for blood donors (anyone who lived: (i) in the U.K. six months or more from the late 80's to the mid-90's, or (ii) in the affected EU nations, for an aggregate amount of time 10 years or longer -- is ineligible to donate... those EU nations currently on the list are France, Ireland and Portugal). A similar screening procedure is in place in Australia. We can expect this list to change if any further spread of TSE surfaces.
* At the present time, there is no way to test human blood, or a live person, for the presence of the disease.
* Other potential exposures, which are admittedly more remote, include pharmaceuticals, dietary supplements and cosmetics which are made with bovine: organs, blood, gelatin or glandular tissue (e.g. slaughterhouse sources).
* Recent efforts to contain this disease within the U.K., or even greater Europe, appear to have been generally effective. This containment is largely the result of a ban on protein feed supplements.
* To date, the only confirmed cases of BSE outside of the EU have occurred in Canada, the Falkland Islands and Oman. All have only one or two reported cases and all are also believed to have involved imported cattle.
* The spread of the disease within the EU may stem from earlier feed or animal exports from Britain, or possibly their own recycling of animal protein (by-products) into the feed chain. Another potential source of spread are people who aren't bothered by breaking the recent laws designed to restrict such exports. The countries which received significant volumes of U.K. exported feed from 1988 to 1996, at which time such by-products were banned from all U.K. feeds include, the EU countries, China, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Malta, Philippines, Russia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Thailand.

http://www.facworld.com/FACworld.nsf/Doc/21stcenturycjd

[Captain Corea]

[Guri Guy]

The Korean media hasn't learned a damn thing and will continue to act irresponsibly.

[Captain Corea]

[Guri Guy]

Agreed, it is a step in the right direction. Mind you, they have no choice really. I also see that they are planning to monitor and test for Bird Flu much more effectively as well.

That and finally deal with the dog meat issue. If only they'd do something about the "Cat Juice" industry.

[CentralCali]

Last I heard, the Korean government planned to declare South Korea "bird flu free." Any takers on how accurate that report will be?

What the media should've done is print front page articles announcing that they lied to the Korean public about American beef, that American beef is safe, that the safety of Korean beef cannot be known because it wasn't tested until now, and that the dog meat industry is based on lies and cruelty.

Will that ever happen in South Korea?

[Gollywog]

CentralCali wrote:

[i4NI]

It's so stupid how the country's own media does so much harm to it's own people. It's like these places have North Korea's interests in my mind, not it's own people.

[Gollywog]

Yepp. They didn't learn a thing.

I think no one in the Korean government really understands the BSE - mad cow disease issue.

Now they want to ban BEEF from any country for five years where even one infected cow is found.

There were nearly 200,000 cases of BSE in the UK. THAT is a mad cow disease outbreak.

Three cows were found in the U.S. EVER. The first was a sick cow that was killed on the farm and buried there, and was originally imported from Canada. Never made it into the food chain. Out of 50,000,000 cows in the U.S. For that, a country would be banned from selling beef in Korea.

Why?

You can't contaminate a herd of cattle in Korea by importing a STEAK from the U.S. -- especially if only one cow is found in an entire year with BSE. And the chances of a human contracting vCJD from eating beef even from the UK are so infinitesimally small you are far more likely to be struck and killed by lightning - in the winter.*

This from a country that used the same contaminated feed that caused the UK mad cow disease epidemic, lied about it to the Korean people, and didn't bother to test the cattle for BSE.

BASED ON THIS, I WOULD HAVE TO CONCLUDE THAT THE KOREAN GOVERNMENT IS RUN BY A BUNCH OF COMPLETE IMBECILES. And this is putting it nicely.

They have learned absolutely NOTHING from the whole mad cow hysteria.

NOTHING.

There are different types of BSE, just as there is CJD and vCJD. CJD occurs spontaneously, without any known environmental cause. Some forms of BSE may occur the same way. While the main culprit was caused by bad feed that was contaminated with human bodies. This, of course, is no longer used, so presumably we will not be seeing many more cases of the epidemic form of BSE.

But Korea, a country whose citizens are terrified of getting sick from their own tap water, that raises cows in dark, cramped muddy pens not fit for American pigs, that doesn't meet international standards for beef slaughter sanitation or testing, that sends kids to schools without toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms, is obsessed with a problem largely concocted from their own corrupt imaginations.

BUT, the rule plans to cut the U.S. a break?!

With friends like Korea, who needs enemies???

Countdown to next round of candlelight kamikazees.


Here's the article:

[CentralCali]