Asian Countries With Mad Cow Concerns Favor Younger Cattle
Quick! Name the Asian country that says Smithfield Beef plant in Wisconsin is not turning out meat that is fit for export to their nation? South Korea? Wrong!
Sure those South Koreans made it difficult. They damn near brought down their government over a Mad Cow scare that was way over the top. But in the end, tons upon tons of U.S. beef being consumed by the South Koreans spoke for the public in a way political protests never did.
The correct answer to our little quiz is Japan, which is also re-discovering it taste for U.S. beef even though its government remains picky about details. Yesterday, Reuters said:
Japan has suspended imports from a former Smithfield Beef Group meatpacking plant in Wisconsin after it found meat that could not be verified as coming from cattle aged 20 months or less, the farm ministry said on Thursday.
The ministry said it had asked the United States to look into the matter, adding that imports from the Green Bay plant that shipped the cargo would be halted until it received a report on the issue.
For more, go here.
Scientists in the United Kingdom say there could be a "second wave" of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease -- the human form of the mad cow disease -- after discovering that some people have a genetic predisposition to the disease.
When the subject is Mad Cow disease, you do not want to find out that it can get worse. That, however, appears to be what researcher Qingzhong Kong from Case Western University had to tell an audience at Kansas State recently.