This was originally posted on Dave’s ESL Cafe, as part of this thread.
Easter Clark wrote
Your posts / links have single-handedly changed my mind about the issue. Seriously, well-done.
Thanks Easter Clark, glad I could be of service. While I’m at this, let me try to address one more misleading contention of the anti-US beef crowd, that being the argument that other countries don’t accept older US beef imports, why should Korea?
I don’t profess to speak for the mobs but I believe when making this argument they are referring to Japan which only accepts imports of US beef less than 20 months of age. If there are other countries, please, anti US beef guys, educate me. So why does Japan refuse to accept older shipments of US beef? It’s an interesting story.
First of all, Japan has had a problem with mad cow disease in their cattle. Since 2001 they’ve had at least nine and perhaps as many as 21 domestic cases of BSE. When the first BSE case was discovered in 2001 the Japanese government imposed a “test-all” policy for Japanese beef. Thereafter every single cow sent to market in Japan had to undergo a test certifying that it was free from BSE before it could be sold. Go to the supermarket in Japan, pick up a steak and you’ll find a government sticker on the package certifying the meat to be tested and BSE free.
This policy remains in effect today, As a result, when the American government presses Japan to reopen its market to older US cattle the Japanese simply say, they’d be happy to do so if every such American cow is tested for BSE just like they are in Japan. In other words they merely expect the US producers to meet the same standards they impose on their own beef industry. Sounds fair to me.
Read all about it here
http://www.hpj.com/archives/2004/aug04/aug02/JapanmovingtoeaseBSEtesting.CFM
http://www.hpj.com/archives/2004/jul04/jul19/JapanwaitsforUSBSEtest.CFM
http://www.rieti.go.jp/en/columns/a01_0125.html
If the Korean government had the same Japanese style testing standards here, then Korea would be perfectly entitled to make the same argument and demand the same standards. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen, Korea’s testing standards are nowhere near as strict as Japan’s or America’s and don’t even meet the internationally accepted minimum. It seems that Korean officials are not as concerned about BSE as the Japanese are, unless of course, the beef happens to be American.
