Beef Dispute Confronts Rice on Korean Visist

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SUMMARY:

Condoleezza Rice visited South Korea, and while she was there, she had to answer a lot of questions about the safety of American beef.

Secretary of State Rice was in Seoul after North Korea destroyed a cooling tower in its major nuclear plant, but the issue of beef safety overshadowed North Korean nuclear issue.

According to the article, "For many South Koreans, who have lived with threats from their neighbor for five decades, the nuclear issue is of less concern than in Seoul's agreement to lift a ban on American beef imports in April."

The article also mentioned that there were large demonstrations and rallies in the streets of Seoul, "to voice fears about possible health risks such as mad cow disease." The demonstrators were chanting: "Rice, Go Home!" and "We don't need U.S. troops! We don't need mad cows!"

On Saturday (June 28), about 15000 people held another rally in Seoul, and some of them clashed with police. Police said they arrested more than 50 people.

The article says that U.S. beef was banned for about 4.5 years (until April this year), when in 2003 mad cow disease was discovered in the U.S.

MY OPINION:

I think American beef is probably not the best beef, especially because the American beef industry uses a lot of hormones and drugs on the cattle. Using so many drugs and hormones cannot be very good for the health of the cattle, and also it cannot be very healthy for the consumers of American beef. So, even if there is no mad cow disease in a particular cow, it can still cause a lot of other health problems. So, I think the Korean people are right to be angry about American beef getting into their food supply.