Would you like insanity with that?

Where’s the Beef? It’s out the back, rubbing its hooves together and cackling as it plots to take over the world!

 

Maybe a slight exaggeration, but then everything is exaggerated over here. A while ago beef imports from the USA were stopped following a Mad Cow Disease scare. Now mad cow isn’t exactly Anthrax, it won’t leave you writhing on the ground, foaming at the mouth and then convulsing so hard you snap your own spine. The chance of being infected with BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) is actually quite small and the most potentially dangerous parts of the carcass are the bone and nerves. No harm, no foul… right? Well not exactly.

Mad Cow translates into the human form as variant of CJD (Variant CREUTZFELDT-JAKOB DISEASE), its not a biological agent causing instant death, instead you slide slowly into senility or insanity as your brain tissue is slowly eaten away. It’s not a shocking instant killer that can galvanise the headlines, its something that steals your life (and sanity) slowly over the course of 6 to 10 years.

 

I could go into how the Korean public is being hoodwinked into rejecting American beef for political reasons, and their inability to distinguish fact from spin, but X does a much better job of it over at the Metropolitician then i ever could. Mostly I won’t because while he makes a lot of accurate points about the willingness of people in this country to swallow some of the dumbest stories, I still think there is a legitimate concern here.