Breen is chair of Insight Communications Consultants. This comment originally appeared in The Korea Times.
When the health ministry issued statistics last weekend (early July) showing H1N1 flu cases were up to 286, Koreans took the news in stride.
Not so long ago, the media atmosphere would have been less cool, possibly even hysterical. The government would almost certainly have banned pork imports, as China, Russia and the Philippines have done.
But this time we are being calmly told that this flu is caught from other infected people, not from pigs, and advised, just in case, to thoroughly cook our pork.
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The change is welcome progress and makes sense.
Playing up foreign food scares and demonizing imports may have made popular sense in justifying agricultural protectionism. But the authorities have learned that food scares lead to fears about local produce and that it’s better for consumer credibility, as well as international perception and trading partner relations, to treat such outbreaks as health and not trade issues.
But as the country moves in this sensible direction, one issue threatens. That is the question of BSE in Korea itself.
Last year we saw a remarkable outbreak of hysteria over BSE when the government lifted the ban on American beef. This ban had been in place since 2003 when BSE was discovered in American cattle.
The United States had since contained the problem sufficiently to meet standards set by the World Organization for Animal Health, the OIE (from the French, Office International des Epizooties).
But school students convinced themselves that America was sending rotten beef that the government would direct into school canteens.
This wave of opinion, which led to mass street protests, was primarily anti-government, and secondly, anti-American.
But it is still remarkable that no one asked out loud about the quality of local beef.
Korea has in fact applied for, but not yet received, the all-clear on BSE from the OIE. To do so, it has to seriously test for it.
And therein lies the risk. What if the government’s veterinarians find cases? Do they hide them and keep their fingers crossed? The temptation must be there.
If BSE is found, agriculture officials are more likely to be fired in the wake of the inevitable anti-government outcry and protests from farmers than rewarded for protecting the consumer.
Further, the disease peaked worldwide long ago. The cause is known. It’s under control and should soon be a thing of the past.
Indeed, have they already faced this dilemma and made their decision?
Here is the history behind that question.
Like many other countries, Korean cattle were fed the now banned meat and bones meal, called MBM, which scientists say caused BSE.
Korea notably is the only Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country that imported MBM not to have reported cases of BSE.
That is either because, in order of likelihood, testing was inadequate, cases were covered up or the disease wasn’t here.
Korea put its application in for OIE clearance in late 2007. As there was a testing system and no BSE to report, the country expected to be designated BSE-free (officially, “negligible risk.”).
To date, this group is Australia, Argentina, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Singapore, Sweden and Uruguay.
The next category down is controlled risk. The 33 countries in this group either have testing and control systems good enough for consumers not to worry, such as Britain, the epicenter of the disease, Canada, Japan, and the United States, or have questionable testing but no symptoms, like Mexico.
Korea made neither list. Its application was rejected in May last year, and it remained with the rest in the `undetermined BSE risk category for another two years.
Although reported, this setback was cleverly positioned by the government in the context of concerns over resumption of U.S. beef imports and drowned out by the noise of those few weeks. No questions were raised publicly.
One reason for rejection was that the country’s random testing system, while good on paper, because you don’t need to test every single cow, was so poor in practice that it was guaranteed not to find any cases. Here’s how.
Nine out of 10 cattle in the slaughter house, where the testing is done, are around 18 months old. That’s the age cattle are turned into beef. BSE has never been found in young cattle younger than 30 months. It typically appears in animals around 70 to 80 months old.
These older cows are used for dairy. They are slaughtered for use in products such as pet food. Thus, the OIE examiners will give you, say, one point, for every beef cow that you test, and 750 for every cow tested in the high-risk dairy category.
Korea scored low because it randomly tested mostly beef cattle. This was like a terrorist program that body-searched old ladies and ignored men with beards.
Another reason for the rejection last year was that data regarding the ban on animal byproduct feeds was fuzzy.
In other words, it was not 100 percent clear that cattle weren’t still being fed dodgy meat products.
Anyway, that was then, and we are living in the now. The ban on bad feed is apparently stronger now and the testing more effective.
The submission for the next exam is at the end of this year with the result next May.
Until then, we have to hold our breath.
