Mad Cow Disease

There have been many protests in Korea against importing cows from the US  for several days. Police collided with citizens to stop them violently.
Police shot a high-pressure water cannon directly to a guy on a peaceful 'candle' demonstration and became blind. Police stumped on a girl who was in a demonstration and beat up a reporter from one of the biggest Korean broadcasting systems.

Here, law graduate students from Seoul National University claim that police'  suppression is illegal (written in Korean).They made it clear that even if policemen got an order from their boss, if it's obvious illegal work like harming other people, they are also guilty. The way the police used 'high pressure water cannon' and using their metal shields are against the rules, too.

Whatever brought up the demonstrations, this shows the poor status of Korea in human rights. Without permission of the authority, you can't demonstrate or gather for it in a public place, even if it's peaceful. They made excuses like the demonstration is impeding the traffic, and people complain about it. However, almost 10 thousand people gathered per a night for demonstration, majority of citizens actually support the demonstration. Additionally the way of police's suppressing the demonstration is illegal. New President's goal should be 'guaranteeing human rights' before 'improving economic status.'


The risk of importing cows with 'mad cow disease' from the US seems low since there have been 'only' 2 cases in the US. But, for Koreans, who have plenty of beef by raising cows in the country and importing from Australia, where there has been no case of mad cow disease reported, it looks unnecessary to import cows from the US. Whatever the reasons are Koreans do not want a trade, but there is a forced trade of product which people are not interested. The deal is, as the president MBL says, giving up a little for getting more benefits in economical trades between Korea and the US. I don't know what kind of benefits, if any, Koreans can get from making a deal citizens hate or is that just one of MBL's national plans nobody else can understand, like his canal project, or trials to remove universal health plan?

Living in the US, I eat beef without concerns because I know the risk is extremely low, and so many, such as causes, the way of transmission,or exact incidence of mad cow disease or that of human version of the disease, vCJD, are not yet proven.

97% of mad cow diseases have been reported from UK, where they had fed cows cow bones and other body parts. If you don't feel safe when you travel to Europe, try not to eat beef or consume only solid meat, not burgers, sausages, brain, spinal cord, and etc.

You can find more information about the disease at CDC website.