As reported in two Chosun Ilbo articles, Koreans may be “going overboard” with mad cow disease. “PD Diary”, the famous MBC current affairs program, has claimed that 94 percent of Koreans have a “special” gene that makes them more susceptible to getting Mad Cow Disease vs. regular Americans or Britons (Canucks, Kiwis and Aussies were, unfortunately, not mentioned in the report). Per the article:
“A tepid and delayed response from the government is only fueling fears. The personal blog of President Lee Myung-bak, who promised that resuming import of U.S. beef will bring high-quality and low-priced beef to the table, has been virtually shut down by Internet users who bombarded it with messages protesting against the decision.”
Interesting bit of “scientific” exposé there MBC! It would have reinforced their case if they had interviewed just one gyopo from America who’s had his brains melted from a lifetime of eating American beef. Reminds me of another equally futile piece of pseudoscience that Koreans still hold dear.
Picture from Japanese show “Morning Musume”.
96 Comments
I don’t know about this special gene called the type “M” which supposedly is susceptible to mad cow disease. But I do believe one of their concerns is legit. Koreans consume extraordinary amounts of cow bones, organs, blood products, and other parts that carry higher chances of carrying the disease.
Again… get me ONE gyopo, a Yankee or a Canuck, who’s got mad cow.
Perhaps Korean chicken should be banned for consumption because avian flu was found in Korea, after all.
I think it is fair to say Koreans are genuinely susceptible to mad cow disease because of the excessive amount of bovine excrement being distributed by the Korean beef industry.
Hmm, if they were so concerned with public health, they should protest the fact that foreign English teachers are practically committing murder by lying to their students about fan death.
In any case, here’s a new word for the nutty netizens:
vegetarianism
The only problem is that some of those “nutty netizens” are probably Korean cattle farmers…
Special genetic propensity? It’s all true. I think that Hwang Woo Suk proved it in Nature.
Jeffery Hodges
* * *
To say nothing of the special gene that seemingly makes 94% of Koreans susceptible to believing this kind of baseless folklore/nationalistic propaganda!
“Again… get me ONE gyopo, a Yankee or a Canuck, who’s got mad cow.”
There hasn’t even been ONE Yankee or Canuck - regardless of race/ethnicity - who’s gotten Mad Cow from eating American or Canadian beef. Not a single one. (Kind of like how not a single American or Canadian life has been taken in the night by a homicidal fan.)
I wouldn’t be surprised if these netizens are just proponents of the liberal faction trying to keep the anti-US flame going.
No independent thought = no self esteem
no self-esteem = esteem taken and given to you when needed
These 2 statements pretty much sum up liberals/Confucius thinkers.
# 7,
Per http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/vcjdworld.htm 3 deaths in the U.S. and one in Canada.
“These 2 statements pretty much sum up liberals/Confucius thinkers.”
Not only had I never realized that liberal and Confucianist thinkers had so much in common, but I wouldn’t have begun to imagine their shared way of thinking could be summed up in a mere two statements!
Re: #8 and #10
“No independent thought = no self esteem
no self-esteem = esteem taken and given to you when needed
These 2 statements pretty much sum up liberals/Confucius thinker”
You may have gotten the Confucious part right and liberals part right if applied to Koreans (and perhaps liberals from other countries), but that would be backwards for U.S. liberals. Rather, U.S. “conservatives” are famous for following the herd - which has the side benefit of at least being organized - whereas U.S. “liberals” are famous for being like a herd of cats - too much independent thought.
Just look at Clinton vs. Obama. I predict the “liberals” will still continue to be at each other’s throats and toss what’s supposed to be a Democratic shoe-in to the GOP.
For the record, I fall squarely on the “liberal” side of U.S. politics, but squarely on the “conservative” side of Korean politics. I can’t even begin to identify with the Korean liberal movement.
How easy is it to get mad cow disease from infected meat? How about fast food?
“For the record, I fall squarely on the “liberal” side of U.S. politics, but squarely on the “conservative” side of Korean politics. I can’t even begin to identify with the Korean liberal movement.”
Me too, at least for the most part.
I have to admit I was being mildly sarcastic in #10…
“Koreans consume extraordinary amounts of cow bones, organs, blood products, and other parts that carry higher chances of carrying the disease.”
This would be a legitimate concern (cuisine culture dictates higher exposed & susceptible in a given population), but the crux of their argument is genetic… I kinda doubt that it’s genetic.
But even if it is conceded that the Korean population has higher exposed & susceptible population, the demonstrated virulence and pathogen population from case studies dictate that the chance of initiation of infection cycle in a host population with near-zero pathogen population is, for all intents and purposes, nil.
#5,
Then, they should consider my comment a threat.
#9,
Wow, it’s an epidemic. We’re all going to die!!!!
Can someone please post the links for the Korean-language version of the Chosun-Ilbo newspaper articles? I need to show this to my paranoid wife.
Thanks in advance!
These scientific statements must’ve come out of the same lab that pronounced that koreans are not susceptible to SARS & the avian bird flu because of their regular consumption of kim-chi.
korean science = faked clones.
#9,
“this physical trait makes Koreans two to three times more likely than Americans or Britons to contract the disease”
So, 6 Koreans will die from it…How many kids were run over in a school zone this week?
Don’t get me wrong. CJD is a serious medical condition and nothing to be laughed at (100% mortality so far, I think). And there should be some precaution towards managing livestocks, not only for CJD but for other pathogens as well. It’s just… overreaction, big time.
Exactly. There are more than a few NK-inspired, nationalists employed in media here. I am hoping that LMB will clean house because this sort of thing is only false propagandizing. Though I do not trust the American meat industry, this sort of fake science is not healthy to indulge in.
I’m no fan of the Korean media either, but have you just suggested that the President of this country should crack down on the local media?
Wonder if you would say the same thing were you back home in the States.
#19 “So, 6 Koreans will die from it…How many kids were run over in a school zone this week?”
I’ll say! There are just so many other thing in this country to worry about.
I would go on but I really wonder who is handling the PR for the American Beef industry on this issue? They just don’t seem to be doing their job.
I hear there is going to be a big candle light rally downtown at 8pm.
I wonder if they are going to rip apart a US baby calf in protest
My understanding is that there is no known direct link between consuming infected livestock and developing CJD. However, the key word in that sentence is, of course, ‘known’.
A summary:
- no known link between mad cow/CJD
- only a few cases of mad cow in the US
- Americans consumed whoknowshowmany tons of beef in the last few decades
- 3 cases as reported in the link in #9 (one suspected of being exposed outside of the US)
I’ll take my chances.
As for the genetic susceptibility - just wow. How can papers print that kind of crap without some sort of reference.
Re: #22
Agreed.
R. Elgin,
It’s not the media. It’s the Korean way of thinking. Not even the almighty LMB has the power to force Koreans (as a whole) to think for themselves and get 2nd opinions.
I know of several brilliant Koreans who will boycott a product based on a single media report without even pausing to think about WHY that media outlet has a vested interested in its particular brand of spin.
I personally chalk it up to the Korean neo-Confucionist educational system : don’t ask questions, just accept and memorize.
Damn, it’s almost too easy to sink a product in Korea : just make one, negative sensational story based upon anecdotal evidence and distorted/inflated statistics and BAM ! - said product is history. Such tactics are far more effective than flinging cow dung at hapless department-store workers.
That makes me wonder…perhaps “fan death” was started by a chaebol to force people to upgrade to air conditioners ?
#23: “I would go on but I really wonder who is handling the PR for the American Beef industry on this issue? They just don’t seem to be doing their job.”
They’re too busy trying to convince Americans it’s safe.
#24: “- Americans consumed whoknowshowmany tons of beef in the last few decades”
And with no ill health effects!
“I’ll take my chances.”
The Goat is trying to get us to eat cows. I’d call that a conflict of interest.
Re #24:
“How can papers print that kind of crap without some sort of reference.”
They’re playing perfectly to the “Koreans are a special, pure race” fallacy that many eagerly Koreans lap up. From an ethically vacuous PR/marketing point of view, it’s rather brilliant, actually. It’s something Karl Rove himself would approve of.
The easiest lie to tell is the one the listener is eager to believe.
re: school zones: bang on. I know one of the kids that got killed in a school zone. Korea has MUCH better things to worry about, but because this one ties into a hot-button issue (America, Japan, Education, China, Corruption, Foreigners in Korea) it gets the press.
miguknamja #25:
“Damn, it’s almost too easy to sink a product in Korea. . . ”
it’s not quite THAT easy — to sink the product you must (however speciously) link it to one of the standby scapegoats — Chinese imports, the Japanese colonial influence, Western English teachers American GI’s, lazy/corrupt public officials/chaebol owners, Korean racial/national superiority/inferiority (either one will do - it’s amazing to see a country have both an inferiority and a superiority complex at the same time) or another of the old standbys. THEN the media’ll go bonkers and do the rest of your work for you, and find talking heads to confirm whatever you said (probably with text at the bottom of the screen saying, “Actual, REAL scientist!”)
If this doesn’t prove Koreans have some shorts in the circuity, I don’t know what else does.
Ah yes, but what about irregular Americans? Are we safe, too?
Disclaimer: I didn’t write the post to make fun of Koreans or what they may or may not believe in. I wrote it because I’m an economist at heart and I hate waste. There is just no reason why Koreans need to spend 5 times more then they should for good quality soh gogi.
All this baloney science is probably being advanced by people with an economic agenda, (i.e. Korean farmers) kinda like the myth of the four “basic” food groups was advanced by the U.S. Dairy industry (there’s always examples of the Tobacco industry also). Anyways, it’s selfish to make 47 million people pay way more for something just so a few tens of thousands of people can have society artificially make them a living.
“If this doesn’t prove Koreans have some shorts in the circuity, I don’t know what else does.”
Nice. Very classy.
Cool! Never knew that. The best factoids are the ones that make immediate sense, like turning on all the lights at once.
My students were all abuzz about this report today. They even said—for some reason—that it won’t be safe to live here (Suncheon), and that they need to move to Gwangju. I have no idea what that means or what that brought about—perhaps getting cows confused with chickens—but they were unanimously against the import of American beef. They were all afraid they were going to die. They’re smart kids, good kids, and they did raise some other good points about the Lee Myung-bak free-trade agreement . . . but man, I was surprised how worked up they were getting and how vocal they were about both this beef issue and the President. They were even talking about signing the online petition to impeach him. (And they were under the impression that we’d be sending lower quality beef to Korea, the beef Americans don’t want to eat). Weird, but people rightly ought to be more afraid of bird flu than mad cow disease down here in the Jeollas.
Even my coteachers were worked up about it, were quite worried about the risk of MCD, and they didn’t believe me when I brought up the articles and told them that they weren’t genetically predisposed to Mad Cow Disease. *sigh*
I haven’t been following the FTA at all or this latest business about beef imports, so somebody else can enlighten me . . . is the issue of Mad Cow Disease of real concern, and one expressed in the Korean-language press, or is it just being trotted out now to complement the knee-jerk anti-foreign sentiment that always accompanies stories of foreign competition?
Also keep in mind that Jeolla would be predisposed politicaly to anything that makes 2MB look bad. I haven’t heard a word about it from any of my kids here in Apgujeong…
“If this doesn’t prove Koreans have some shorts in the circuity, I don’t know what else does.”
Koreans and their Japanese cousins. Remember how Japanese had special intestines that prevented them from eating imported beef?
One Japanese negotiator, Tsutomu Hata, raised hackles in Washington recently by asserting that the Japanese capacity for imported beef was limited because their intestines supposedly are longer than those of other people. A similar controversy arose a few days ago after reports that Japan’s main farm lobbying group, the Central Union of Agricultural Cooperatives, had produced a videotape contending that chemical preservatives in imported American food were making Japanese children ill.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/f.....A96E948260
Saying something stupid to justify protectionism makes that person short-sighted, not a whole people short-circuited.
In “Japan Unmasked,” by Boye Lafayette De Mente, there is this quote by Japanologist G.H. Lambert: “The Japanese are probably the most knowable and predictable people on Earth.” Apparently he has never met a Korean, because if you’ve met one, you’ve met them all, more or less. Korea: a collectivist society gone berserk!
Mad cow is a rare disease in that it has no viral or bacterial component. It is based on a protein in the brain that is needed for neuron function. This protein is unique in that once a child is born the protein is self replicating and no longer has any interaction with DNA for its creation. Some individual, (mad cow actually first appeared in cannibals in the south pacific, and was later found in sheep in the UK), had a shorter than normal protein enter their system. Should this shorter protein enter your blood and move to your brain it will start self replicating. Over time too many short protein chains build up in the brain, causing misfires/ gumming up the works/ and you have mad cow. If cattle brain matter touches other parts of the meat during the butchering process it can transfer the protein into the meat. (Animals often get the desease as waist meat, ie. brain, is often thrown in raw as a filler for feed, making it a direct transfer once it is eaten by the animal.) However, even if you should be unlucky enough to get tainted meat, eating your meat well done is a sure way to break the protein down, so you will never get it from any well cooked meat.
This said I find it hard to believe there is a genetic component to getting this disease, and even if there is, just make sure any meet you eat is well cooked and you’ll never have to worry! In short, the Korean beef lobby is conning or paying off somebody to try, once again, to kill cheap beef imports.
This foolishness is the perfect storm of blind trust of a perceived “authority,” existing skepticism of US beef based on previous bullshit scaremongering, manipulation of Korean fondness for being “unique”, and complete ignorance of the scientific reality of BSE…all mixed up to create a net collective (but not individual) benefit for “us” while causing economic damage to “them.”
Of course if there were a breakout of madness among Korean cattle, PD Diary would be manufacturing statistics that “proved” 94% of Koreans have a special gene which makes them immune from BSE. In general, if you tell Koreans that they’re unique or special in any way, you’ve already set the hook. The rest is just reeling them in with any combination of smoke and mirrors that seems authoritative, a whiff of “science,” denigration of anything foreign, and scaring the shit of people.
This kind of despicable, yellow journalism still thrives because the Korean public continues to be very comfortable swallowing lies that conform to their own prejudices and nationalism, and the pathetically tabloid Korean media feels comfortable dishing the lies out as part of their patriotic duty. Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the public has thus far refused to mix in a healthy skepticism of media agendas and baseless pseudo-science, which paves the way for stupid woo woo shit like politicians actually believing the placement of a grave is relevant to the real world, or large numbers of average people and higher-ups in government and politics entrusting life decisions to fortune tellers (insert Ronald Reagan joke here).
We all laugh at ridiculous shit like fan death, but the unquestioning acceptance of pseudo-science myths like that lays the groundwork for more crap like the Great American BSE Plague of 08′ to be built up in the public conscience. And the stakes are obviously much higher for American beef exporters than they are to the fan industry.
Chosun Ilbo reports that there was no scientificly proven data that the “MM” gene is espicially susceptable to mad cow disease.
http://news.chosun.com/site/da.....01283.html
It looks like the MBC PD report has done it again - create controversy by spreading false facts based on no evidence. It’s called rumor mongering.
I’ve been in three arguments in two days with Koreans who have been watching this “news” and telling me crap like “in America, no one eats American beef” or “America is only going to send the oldest beef to Korea and only Korea” or “Somebody died of Mad Cow last week”.
These are all normally cool people as well and everyone of them voted for 2MB thinking he was THE MAN.
Every single bitchy whiny ill informed nitwit will be eating American beef inside of six months because of quality and price.
The days of paying man won for a tiny handful of crappy red meat is about to be blown out of existence.
@#38:
I understood that the risk of Mad Cow couldn’t be eliminated by cooking. Can you provide research links to support your claim? I’m genuinely interested because I usually buy meat from a local farmer who pastured the animals, but she doesn’t always have soup bones on hand and rarely has oxtail. I realize the overall risk is low anyway, but it is a nasty disease.
This is another example of the new administration that is trying to repair the damage that the previous administration has done. What confuses the Koreans is that only up to few months ago, the Korean agricultural ministry backed by ’scientific data’ said that there’s danger of mad cow disease from consuming US beef. Now that the beef trade is liberalized, the Korean government all of a sudden changes it’s position and once again, backed by ’scientific data’ says it’s now safe to consume US beef.
What we have here is the result of politics and policy of trade barrier of the past government which the Lee administration is trying to eliminate. And the ones who are confused and scared are the Korean consumers. No doubt the left wing parties and the Anti Americans who have been badly battered recently at the polls, are on this to make it their rallying cry.
BTW, the lady in the picture at the bottom of your post has a pork chop on her head, not a steak.
““America is only going to send the oldest beef to Korea and only Korea””
Hmmm, right. I think someone doesn’t understand that the buyers and importers are Koreans companies.
As an American who eats more than his weight in beef every year, I’m more worried about getting killed by falling suicide jumpers here than getting a bad burger or T-bone. Anyway, judging by that list (#9), it looks like those North Americans were likely infected in the U.K. and not by U.S. beef.
It’s actually quite sad, that for all their time in schools, you would think that the population here could do some basic research on their own. Just today, I had a very intelligent Korean friend tell me that she will never get Lasik eye surgery because her boss said it was a bad idea and too risky. What utter nonsense! I had my surgery 11 years ago and still have the same perfect eyesight. I had to pull out old pictures to prove this to her and then go on the internet to English language medical websites to give her unbiased assessments of the procedure. There is a small risk involved, but her boss had her believing that nearly everyone goes blind from this surgery.
And as for the special “gene”, they might want to name it the “lemming” gene, or maybe it is something special added to the soju and kimchi that foreigners are unable to absorb into our obviously different human physiologies that makes us immune to “fan death” and other Korean maladies.
I am not sure I understand the argument that MBC is making. Didn’t Korea allow American beef in Korea prior to 2003? It seems most of the adult Korean population has already consumed American beef. Thus, as previously stated, no Gypo, no Korean, No Canadian, no American has gotten mad cow from eating US beef. There was a time in Korea were LA kalbi was quite popular. This is obvious anti-americanism. If I were in the US government I would link car imports from Korea to American beef exports to Korea. Suddenly, I doubt we would hear anything about mad cow.
I’ve heard countless Koreans claim that the U.S. only exports low-quality beef. Is this true? I don’t think we in the U.S. have a corresponding belief in the quality of Korean auto and electronic goods exports.
i don’t know. i’m a korean currently residing overseas but it seems true that the negotiators agreed to import particularly old and problematic beef and parts (killed when older than 30 months etc.) that is seldom consumed in the u.s. itself, not to mention entirely banned in other rich countries (japan, european countries). it’s not only a sensitive health issue, but also a matter of humiliation again…why should s.korea be the only country that imports those? there has been timing issue too. oie, fda changing regulations around the negotiation settlement etc. for all of you who as always just like to poke fun at supposedly irrational response from the korean public, why not think twice, especially if you are not planning to leave korea anytime soon.
I’ve also heard claims that 1) Americans, Europeans, Japanese, etc only eat cows that are under 20 months because they are safe, while under the new agreement there is no such restriction in Korea, and 2) the ‘have you actually seen people with mad cow disease?’ isn’t really valid because the symptoms of the disease actually shows up 30 years after the consumption of infected meat.
Also, I read that the “special gene” in question is indeed more prevalent among East Asians than it is among others, so it’s not really a case of Korean exceptionalism gone mad as some commenters here have suggested. But the connection between the MM gene and mad cow disease has not been proven 100%, so yeah, the folks at MBC are still morons.
Well, I’m confused.
Oh, and a conspiracy theorist friend of mine says Lee MB deliberately led the public to go batshit crazy over beef so that he could divert away the attention from his real agenda, e.g. privatization of medical and state-owned industries. Once he gets those reforms done, he will then try to placate the public. I’m not really convinced, but some part of me actually hopes that this is the case.
#39: “Exacerbating the problem is the fact that the public has thus far refused to mix in a healthy skepticism of media agendas”
#40: “Chosun Ilbo reports that there was no scientificly proven data that the “MM” gene is espicially susceptable to mad cow disease.”
In addition to Chosun Ilbo’s critical report, the general public’s willingness to buy American beef is a form of healthy skepticism.
Er, repost? My comment didn’t show up — is it because of the links, or did I use a naughty word?
You know, a lot of you commenters should stop pointing at the splinter in Koreans’ eyes and worry about the log in your own… the ignorance on display in these comments above is stunning, definitely the 뚝배기 calling the 냄비 black!
Correct me (with references, not empty bluster and insults that so many here love to banter about) if I’m wrong, but:
1. Roh’s Administration wasn’t the one that recently rescinded all beed-inspection duties to the USA, or opened the beef market completely to all US beef. Whatever Roh’s faults, it was Lee’s administration that has opened the market to Korean beef — and, as far as the public understands it, rescinded the majority of rights of inspection to American authorities, too — and when Lee was questioned about it, he was, let’s say, “evasive”… saying, “Oh, I think I did that in my sleep!” (here) and “Oh, have you found [those rights of inspection] yet?” (here) was how his patronizing attempts at humorous dismissal — which have angered many people — have gone.
2. If Koreans are overreacting, then how come the US FDA enacted the biggest beef recall in history in February, and widened restrictions very recently to include pet food? Oh, yeah, no, there’s no problem. Korean people should just shut up, quit complaining, eat those “downer cows” that the American government has deemed unfit to feed American dogs and cats, because LMB, the GNP, and commenters at the Marmot’s say it’s okay, and just hope that there’s not an outbreak of CMJ here in thirty years. Right. Got it.
(Of course, if there is an outbreak, I bet the same shameful subset of commenters will be snarkily mocking all the “sponge-brained Koreans” with as much glee their elderly forms can muster.)
3. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is caused by prions. Prions are not e-coli, and no, they are not killed by adequate cooking or other normal food preparation. Sterilization is actually very difficult. So no, cooking your beef properly won’t remove the prions, unless you’re steaming it under high pressure for a long time. Oh, and by the way, it’s also heritable — 10-15% of cases are inherited. So if you’re lucky enough to catch it along the way, you can pass it on to your unborn children, too. And if your cattle population has a somatic outbreak,
4. The “Gene M” that was mocked by the poster isn’t a Korean pseudoscience fantasy — it’s actually a gene for the encoding of amino acids, and everyone has two alleles for it, encoding either methionine or valine or both. So you can be MM, MV, or VV depending on which alleles you have. 40% of humanity is MM, and is discussed here, and yes, the long and the short is that there is evidence that a genetic determinant for susceptibility exists. It hasn’t yet been demonstrated in humans, but there’s a reason we test with mice — a lot of results we find with them do apply to us in some way or other. So the Chosun’s claim that there’s no link is, really, downplaying the evidence. As for whether Koreans have a higher concentration of the MM pair, this article is the source of the 94% statistic. You’d think that finding would have been contested by someone since its peer-reviewed publication in 2004 if it were error-ridden, wouldn’t you? (It didn’t very take long for Dr. Hwang to be outed, did it, Jeffery? Or is Hwang now grounds to dismiss all scientific work by Koreans, or all work published in prestigious science journals? )
5. At the demonstration by the Cheonggyecheon tonight — which was peaceful, and predictably has not been discussed here at all — protesters shouted “조선일보쓰레기!” (”The Chosun Ilbo [is] garbage!”) and “동아일보 쓰레기!” (”The Dong-A Daily [is] Garbage!”). (Among many other chants inviting Lee to eat madcow beef, calling Lee a mad cow and a and garbage himself, and demanding that various media outlets wake up and think straight.)
How ironic that the people some of you were mocking for their naiveté were saying the same thing about the newspapers that y’all were saying (and so many of us think). I’m not naively saying all these people are paragons of reason — I’m sure lots of them believe in Fan Death, for example — but at the same time, they’re doing the best they can with what their education and society have given them, and they’re raising their voices on an issue on which, after all, their position isn’t unreasonable. It’s rather similar to the British population’s position, and we don’t mock the Brits in their cautiousness. Since when was that cause for mockery?
Frankly, it’s not surprising that y’all think it’s cool to mock Koreans in their desire not to import beef that may, yes, may, pose risks due to idiotic and rather ill-conceived agribusiness practices in the US and Europe. After all, the outbreak of CJD was mainly focused on Britain, but Britain outlawed the agricultural practices that seem to have led to it long ago, and the US dealt with it much later. Why should Koreans be happy to deal with the risks that American agribusiness gambled on, and has persisted in even when the writing was on the [British] wall?
By the way, personally, I found the demonstration tonight remarkable in a few ways: in that many young people showed up — I’m hearing estimates of 130,000 people and I’d believe it, as the area was so crowded many would-be participants couldn’t get in — and in that it was peaceful and very civil, in that people were engaged in some kind of response to media distortions of the facts.
It was actually pretty inspiring, to be honest. But hey, I know most of you want to snidely mock these people for voicing concerns and opinions. How dare they rise beyond your low, snide expectations.
For those of you who care to see what the people objecting really look like, another demo will occur at tomorrow 5pm by the “ddong-tap” (the ugly unicorn horn tower thing in the Cheongyecheon, right outside the Dong-A Ilbo.
In addition to my yet-to-show-up comment, (too many links, maybe?) there’s a huge hole in the poster’s idea that an interview with even on CJD or vCJD-infected kyopo is needed to prove anything; that is, Korean populations abroad are probably too small for there to be a significant number of such cases. I mean, duh. One in a million Korean-Americans adds up to how many Korean-Americans?
# 52,
It’s probably better to think in terms of North American kyopo population, which would amount to 2.2 million.
Also factor in that North American Koreans eat A LOT of American beef, probably more in a decade then Koreans living in Korea will eat in a life time.
#49: “I’ve heard countless Koreans claim that the U.S. only exports low-quality beef. Is this true?”
Mass-produced American beef is low-quality beef, so yes.
It depends on how one defines “low quality.” The USDA and other assessors of meat have a point system that gives higher scores to younger beef and beef with more marbling. It’s all about taste. The nutritional profile is not considered at all. Grass-fed, grass-finished beef is leaner but far superior nutritionally with a favorable Omega 3 to 6 fatty acid ratio and high in CLA, a natural trans-fat that is actually good for you. The only grass-fed beef available in Korea is imported from Australia and New Zealand. Korean farmers use the same production methods - hormones, antibiotics, and the like - so I don’t see why Korean beef is any better than mass-produced US beef. It certainly isn’t any more nutritious or healthful.
“Korean farmers use the same production methods - hormones, antibiotics, and the like - so I don’t see why Korean beef is any better than mass-produced US beef.”
Do they use the same amounts of hormones and antibiotics?
Anyway, my comment (#54) was not saying South Korean beef is better than American, just that mass-produced American beef with its hormones and antibiotics is not a healthy thing to eat. If what you say above is true, then mass-produced South Korean beef is also low quality.
#53:
They may eat a lot of beef, but not necessarily more than other North Americans.
Also, those 2.2 million Koreans are a small drop in the bucket of the North American population in general, so that their chances, statistically, of being the one-in-a-million in the US who get it diminish rapidly when you consider they’re a tiny part of the US population, which, just like Korean North Americans, eats a lot of beef. Even despite the MM allele which apparently IS a 94% prevalent rate in Koreans. (I mentioned this in my other post, which hasn’t appeared yet — I guess there are too many links — but I’ve mirrored my comment here if you care to see actual evidence in response to bluster and ignorance in the comment thread and even, a little, in the post.)
None of which means CJD isn’t a serious threat if policies allow it to spread.
“e.g. privatization of medical and state-owned industries.”
The medical industry is mostly privatized. Maybe you meant that he’ll privatize the medical insurance system.
The many doctors and dentists I know (neighbors, my wife’s friends (she’s a professor)) like LMB because he supposedly plans to restructure the income tax system, which will be advantageous to people in their tax bracket.
“Korean farmers use the same production methods - hormones, antibiotics, and the like - so I don’t see why Korean beef is any better than mass-produced US beef.”
It’s not that simple. The type of feed, the breed of cattle (Hanu is a Charolais and Korean cow crossbreed whereas American beef will come from of a variety of breeds), the breeding program (admittedly, the Korean cattle breeding program has been very successful), the age at which the cattle are slaughtered, are all some of the factors that will determine the degree of marbling, the texture, and ultimately the flavour of the beef.
Don’t know about U.S. beef, but Korean auto and electronic goods exported to the U.S. are superior in quality compared to those sold in Korea.
“2.2 million Koreans are a small drop in the bucket of the North American population in general”
Ah, but that’s 4.7% of South Korea’s population. The key is a correct sampling of the South Korean population, which is the population that is harboring these paranoid mad cow theories. 4.7% is plenty big for an accurate population sampling.
#57
I am willing to retract my statement that eating beef well done is in fact enough to ensure the safety of the meat as the last time I looked into the disease was over ten years ago in premed, although that was the prevailing wisdom at the time, it could well be dated. I am also sure, as stated in your post, that the disease could be passed on in the womb, (although inherited is the wrong word.) However this is an extremely low risk contagion and I am more worried about avian bird flu going airborne, (not that much), and much more worried about crossing the street in my neighborhood and getting hit by a car or breathing in second hand smoke. I really believe Korean beef farmers are pushing this issue so as not to lose their golden ticket and keep prices high. I, for one, will gladly take the slight risk for inherent economic savings. The danger is being overblown here, it’s being handled in the US to limit risk, and, for me, falls far short of the quality vs. quantity of life test that each of us make everyday when we, say, get on an airplane or have a drink.
Thing to watch for:
A steady string of LMB related tempests in teapots that stir people up, while LMB quietly slips the canal project under the radar, so that by the time people realize that it’s on its way to becoming a reality, despite not being properly planned and examined, it’s too far along to cancel plans. His old buddies in Hyundai Heavy Construction get paid, LMB gets his legacy (scar on the landscape), it doesn’t attract tourist OR shipping revenues, and nobody’s happy except Hyundai Heavy Construction (or whatever the department’s called) and the Indonesian workers brought in to do the DDD work when unemployed university graduates were too proud to work with their hands.
Just a guess. . . but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Korean cars exported are better quality of those sold in Korea..they have to meet regulation needs in each market.
#13 from the Candlelight Vigil post: “I told him that he’s got a better chance of being run over by a car or choking on his food than getting sick from it”
Maybe not.
According to the CDC, an estimated 73,000 cases of E. coli infection and 61 deaths occur in the United States each year and most of the cases have been associated with eating undercooked, contaminated ground beef.
http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/1031002172.html
American beef is not especially safe. Korean and Australian beef may be the same.
E-coli thrive in the acidic stomachs of grain-fed cattle but don’t do so well in the slightly alkaline stomachs of cows that eat grass like nature intended. Korean cows are grain-fed. Australian cows are grass-fed. Draw your own conclusion.
#63
Um, but… Only 4.7% of the North American population is Korean. If infection is one in a million, and your population is only 4.7% of the whole, don’t you have a likelihood of 0.047% of having one Korean in that population get infected, not counting this apparent heightened susceptibility? It seems like a pretty tall order to me.
#64
Yes, “inherited” is the wrong word if you’re talking technically — heredity being genetic and all. But in the prior, colloquial sense, we use the word “inherit” to refer to money, too — the emotional resonance I was going for. You’re right though, that this usage could cause confusion and muddy understanding. Thanks for pointing it out.
You’re also right it’s a low risk contagion, but I don’t think it’s fair to mock people who don’t want to take that risk, or who feel screwed when their government summarily and suddenly decides the risk is acceptable. Getting on a plane is an individual choice. Import regulations are not, and they affect everyone. If a society doesn’t want to take a risk, why should it? And why should we mock it for not wanting to — especially when it’s an unnecessary risk — indeed, as Koreans perceive, more risk than Americans are being asked to take for their own country’s produce? (There’s always Australian beef, which doesn’t impose this stupid risk on Koreans. Well, until Australian agriculture destroys their environment, anyway.)
I agree that airborne bird flu is probably a bigger worry, and that it needs to get dealt with… but then, is Korea exporting the flesh of infected birds? (As far as I know, Korean recruits in the military are eating them, yes, but hopefully cooked well enough to make them safe.)
And yes, I’m also more worried about being hit by a car, or assaulted by a drunk ajeoshi on line 1. Or by whatever new funky diseases out there that we haven’t even noticed yet. But that’s a different issue. What people mobilize over often looks odd at the time… tea import regulations, for example.
So maybe this is the rehearsal for bigger and better peaceful demonstrations on issues that you and I would both agree need addressing — like reforms in Korean law enforcement, for example. (Many people are quite disgusted with the police nationwide these days.) Again, there are better responses available than mere mockery.
#65
Well, the canal is also still a ways off. We can hope that young people keep mobilizing, and maybe even encourage them to continue to do so, instead of mocking them as many have done here. I mean, if 130,000 showed up yesterday to protest beef imports, who knows how many people will turn up at Cheonggyecheon (or the construction site) to protest the Canal project, considering how widespread opposition is? Those of us from countries with deeper-ingrained democratic traditions could do better than to mock what looks like the beginnings of a springtime meltaway of the political apathy that seemed icily to grip so many young people in the last few years.
By the way, #63,
Yes, I suck at math. Sorry! If you can explain clearly, maybe I’ll see your point.
Don’t forget that mixed races are usually stronger than “pure races” when it comes to diseases, ilness, etc. The mix favours the genes.
People in the whole American continent (from South to North), and in Europe - to a certain degree - have stronger genes, with more defenses. Korea being “homogeneous” (yeah, no Japanese blood in none of them, ok, bite me) can be weaker to diseases. So they can be susceptible to that…although I think it’s a HUGE BS…
PS: Argh. Today’s demonstration sucked. Never fails — when something good happens, they have to bring in a stage and microphones and twice as many people who don’t care and thereby ruin it. Sigh.
That figure seems way too high. Even if one disregards Mexico and considers only Canadians and Americans, the number still seems too high. In the US, Asians comprise less than 5% of our population, and there are something like 1.2 million citizens and permanent residents of Korean ethnicity, so they don’t even make up 1% of the US population. Even if they were Canada’s largest single ethnic group (which they’re not), Koreans still wouldn’t make up 4.7% of the population of North America. Maybe that figure is for Canada alone.
So, not every US cow is tested for mad cow disease. I read that every Australian cow is…what about Korean cows?
where can i find that morning musume episode
@10,11
Not all liberals and Confucian thinkers are alike in the same way not all American liberals think alike. But they fall on the same side of the spectrum.
I’m sure if minoritys in Korea faced the same discriminatory practices and wanted to fight they’d lean liberal. The women here already do as well as Confucius leaning men.
#69
It’s a choice to buy American beef as well. All the supermarket I go to tend to have the country of their meet well displayed. My local butchers will tell me where the beef is from as well. And I’m not trying to mock anyone, or, by my statements, trying to say anything against anything in Korea. There are reasonable fears of say, getting hit by a car, anywhere. I’m simply trying to put the fear behind this issue in a rational context. I do, however, find it disturbing that you automatically assume I was mocking the issue or the demonstrators feelings. Take a look at yourself when you talk about this issue. You’re overly reactionary and not willing to listen to any debate without slanting it into a personal attack. I’m a little disappointed as I thought you were trying to view the issue from a rational/ scientific point of view, not an emotional one.
# 73,
My line of reasoning: 2 million Koreans living in the states, 200k living in Canada which equals 2.2 million North American Koreans living, working and yes, eating North American beef. 47 million Koreans in South Korea.
2.2 divided by 47.0 times 100 equals 4.68%.
The sample size for 47 million people (North American Koreans) equals 4.7% of the total South Korean population, which is a fine sample size to come up with accurate and meaningful results for any statistician.
I don’t know if he’ll be satisfied with any sampling less than 50-100%. The only way to do that is to bring the beef in. I don’t think that’ll make him happy either.
#77
It’s not always a choice to buy American beef; because it’s relatively cheap, it’s not unreasaonable to say that the first place you’ll see it is for school dinners at schools and meals in the army (and in the army, you pretty much have to eat what you get). And as for the markings for where the meat is from, it has been shown in several cases that some meat sellers remark their meat (saying it’s from Australia or New Zealand) to up the price. So it’s entirely possible that meat sellers mark their American beef as ’safe’ hanwoo or Australian beef or something (and the auditing system on the markings is not exactly well-developed).
#77 & 80: Well, and the byproducts of meat end up in all kinds of stuff. It gets used in everything from choco-pies to fraeking tampons, and unlike e-coli, that stuff does not break down in processing. So the issue of choice is, well… I’ll put it this way: this pseudo-Libertarian claptrap just doesn’t apply well to a society with goofy-prototype tech like ours.
It works well in a premodern society, where nobody knows what the hell is what, and anyway nobody’s thought of feeding offal to cattle.
It would work well in a properly regulated (ie. honest) society with sufficient tech for you to RFID-scan every product you’re considering buying or eating, to know its total history, including slaughter pedigree and processing and so on.
(But by that point, you’re likely growing meat in tanks and prionic diseases wouldn’t likely be an issue since you’ve got a minimal nervous system in the tanks anyway.)
It doesn’t work when you’ve got a transitional technocracy where one thing goes into the machine and fifty things come out the other end. Like petrol byproducts going in and food coming out.
It’s very easy, neat, and tidy to claim that “personal choice” can function in that world, but the truth is, personal choice is delimited and crippled by the fact that the world is now too complex for most of us — perhaps for any of us — to really understand what we’re actually choosing much of the time.
Think I’m exaggerating? Go buy any food product on the shelf and account for every step of every ingredient from raw material to finished product. Even with a piece of meat, that’s not easy, because not only do you not know X, Y, and Z, but there’s a lot more you don’t know of which you’re not even unaware of your own ignorance in most cases. That stuff spans A-W and Z-onwards.
So this “free choice” blather is, well, it’s just a dismissal, again, of the notion that a society has the right to accept or reject what they seem to perceive as a shared social risk.
Then again, I should note, there’s far worse on the horizon that worries me than the long-shot of vCJD, since I suspect the beef policies won’t be changing. (And since there are very few confirmed cases of vCJD contraction in the US right now.) But… water privatization, cutting health care, whatever the hell they try to do to education next — education will be messed with, mark my words — and the canal. Ugh. Just ugh.
By the way, did anyone else see this translation of the discussion above? Or do people translate comment threads from this site often?
#78:
Ah, that makes more sense, except… since Koreans are only a tiny fragment of the North American population, don’t their chances of infection plummet in terms of probabilities? Um, if Koreans are less than 1% of the American population, and the infection rate is one in a million, then we wouldn’t necessarily expect any Koreans to have the illness. The probability for each one is much more miniscule than the one-in-a-million.
I mean, they’re one out of every hundred people. So they’d be one in a hundred million, right, on a case by case basis — and so it wouldn’t be all that surprising if none contracted it, where it would be very surprising if an unusual number of Koreans contracted it? You’d have, in all likelihood, one or fewer Koreans in North America ill, wouldn’t you? And wouldn’t we expect none in Canada, even during an outbreak?
Whereas, in Korea, you’ve got a one-in-a-million chance, or maybe slightly higher, if the discussion of MM is valid and you’re predisposed to be susceptible because of it.
I mean, this isn’t just parlor tricks and math, it’s a coherent picture of calculating odds, isn’t it? You wouldn’t think you’d have to have two Korean cases just because there are two million Koreans in the US. You’d expect everyone has equal chances, but in such a big sample, it’d not be surprising that no Koreans were infected, since they’re such a tiny population.
All of which, anyway, is somewhat moot since this illness takes a long time to develop; it’s like asking about confirmed cases of Alzheimer’s among 30-year olds. The absence of early onset might mean later absence of Alzheimer’s, or it might be the absence of early onset.
# 82,
You missed my point. Too lazy to repeat my point and not sure if you’ll miss it yet again even if I did.
I didn’t miss your point. I just think you’re wrong. Whatever.
How I’m I wrong? The Koreans in North America consitute roughly 4.7% of the population of Koreans in South Korea and NOTHING has happened to them. We are talking population sample sizes as they relate to Koreans.
Did you read the freak’in article? These saps are trying to say that Koreans have a special genetic propensity to get Mad Cow Disease and I’m saying that’s hogwash. That’s why it’s important to look at Korean populations to refute the argument.
You missed his point.
Try to imagine that was written at 2:21 pm.
No, I get it. He’s saying that there are not enough Koreans in North America to make an accurate sample. I disagree because you have to weigh the South Korean population into it. I mean there’s only 47 million of them. Take that to the logical conclusion. Wouldn’t that mean it would be harder for them to get the disease since there are not 300 million people as in North America?
Hell, let’s expand it. This so called “M” gene. I’m sure Japanese Americans, Mongolian Americans and Chinese Americans with a northern heritage probably have it also, right? That probably raises the sample to 6 or 7 million. None of them have mad cow either.
Hey…they are doing it for the kids!
No wait…they are doing it through the kids.
Fucking pinkos.
Just putting this out there, but I’m frankly disturbed that the conversation has turned to probability and mathematics when people’s livelihood is at stake here. The fact of the matter is, the government had the means to establish reasonable restrictions on American beef (restrictions that had already been proposed by the government after a good deal of research, such as the Under-30-Month rule and the comprehensive ban on Specified Risk Materials such as the brain and spinal cord) but they did not, despite the various food scares that have been occurring in Korea in the past years. They should have taken into account that Koreans are very sensitive about food safety right now, but they didn’t. It’s only natural that Koreans flare up like this when Japan next door has an under-20-month rule as well as a ban on all SRM(Specified Risk Material) parts. Add to this whole fiasco the fact that Koreans have been largely unhappy about the policies Lee has been carrying out/proposing so far, and this beef issue is really just the last straw.
You’re going to be a lot of fun to have around here, Baedol, so long as you can take a lot of heat. We usually just blast left wing ideas, not actual people - but now that we have one…
Ahh…Baedol may not be going postal now but I’m sure after a few friendly tussles on Marmot’s he will be
She, dear, she.
And so far no one has actually rebutted anything I said.
We’re studying your habits first. We seem to have lost pixel and vicki. Don’t want to scare you off too soon.
CJD is not a laughing matter its a slow and undignified way to die. Sure there will be no immediate effects, but CJD can take a decade to kill you, and the mortality rate is 100%.
Maybe there is only a tiny chance of infection, but why risk it?
I’ll be shying away from beef.