May they rest in peace, and please people, never forget the path of death and destruction that this horrible disease hath wrought on Korea and her people.

Yes, but given that some people will believe anything no matter what scientists say, I’m for testing all the cows. Then again, the nutizens will probably say that the tests results are falsified.

From KT

“Lee Young-soon, one of Korea’s best recognized authorities on mad cow disease, said Thursday it has already been proven that meat and milk from U.S. cattle are safe for humans.
`Even specified risk materials (SRMs), including cow brains, wouldn’t pose much of a problem if they are strictly regulated by law,’ he said at a roundtable discussion titled `Mad Cow Disease and Its Safety Concerns,’ organized by the Korean Academy of Science and Technology in Seoul.’’

And rather obviously:

“Participants in the discussion said they felt there was a need for more objective explanations in the current debate on U.S. beef safety.
They also said there was a need to counter Internet rumors with accurate scientific facts.’’

When hell freezes over.

Well, that depends. There is more than one theory on how prions are formed.

Well, Mr. Smartypants, most E.coli are non-pathogenic. The E. coli found on your toothbrush is generally commensal bacteria (ie. the kind that helps your digestion). One of the strains of E.coli that is fairly common in the digestive system of cattle, E. coli 0:157, causes illness in humans.

That’s why you flush with the seat down.

No, that’s why you flush with the lid down.

Here’s the crux of it; in America there have been a mere three sick cows. The first sick cow spent the first four years of its six-year life in CANADA, where it apparently contracted the BSE strain that you see in other cases in Canada and Europe that arose from cannibalism. The second cow came from Texas, was an ancient 12-years-old (very unlikely for human food, most cows eaten are about 2-years-old). The third cow came from Alabama, and was estimated at an inedible 10-years-old.

According to Scientific American, those last two American born-and-raised cows were shown to have a strain of BSE that is unlike the cannibalistic strain. It is believed that, as humans contract prion diseases at a rate of 1:1,000,000 spontaneously, and that other animals like sheep also contract prion dieases such as “scrapie” spontaneously, that cows might be contracting BSE the same way. Scientists believe the Texas and Alabama cows contracted their BSE spontaneously! That means that all cows, all over the world, even in Korea, could spontaneously contract mad cow disease.

According to the CDC, three people in the U.S. have come down with the human variant of the disease, vCJD–all of them foreigners! The first two were originally U.K. citizens and it is believed that they contracted the disease from U.K. beef. The third was from Saudi Arabia and it is also believed he too contracted the disease from beef in his home country.

So, we’ve got two sick cows that possibly became ill spontaneously, out of 35 million cows slaughtered annually. We all know that the USFDA doesn’t test every single cow like they do in Japan, but they test enough of them to give a very reliable sample of the population. Based on the number of sick animals found, the OiE says that in 2006 the incidence of sick cows was one in 41,666,667; statistically insignificant.

Finally, in the U.K., where 97.5% of all mad cow cases have been discovered, and where 84.5+% of all vCJD cases have arisen, there has been a continual decrease in sick cows. From a height of 37,280 sick cows in 1992, to just 10 so far in 2008. Cases of vCJD are also on the decline, with a peak of 28 deaths in 2000, five deaths last year, and currently zero deaths this year (though three people are known to be sick).

Mad cow is old news. The epidemic is over, and worrying about such a statistically insignificant problem is a waste of time. As Michael said, E. coli is a much bigger problem. So is stomach cancer in Korea, with 20 people dying every day from 1999 to 2003. And stomach cancer is thought to be prevalent here because of dietary choices (i.e. fermented foods high in nitrates, high salt consumption, low fresh vegetable and fruit consumption, and heavy drinking). Kimchi kills, not U.S. beef.

4. Brendon Carr (Korea Law Blog)
Bad news — so is your toothbrush.

That’s why you flush with the seat down.