North Koreans given cause to beef

[donsu]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/IA18Dg03.html


n a country infamous for famines, it is no wonder that cattle in North Korea are prized so highly and considered "national property". According to government sources, North Korea had about 575,000 head of cattle in 2002, but considering the recent floods and food shortages this number may have dropped. In addition to the floods and food shortages, North Koreans must contend with the bovine diseases that cause health concerns not only to the cattle, but also for the people.

The most serious incident took place last summer. It began in the North Korean region of Yanggang. A horrible and mysterious disease that the frightened residents called "leprosy" for the impact on victims, causing them to break out in boils and oozing skin that progressed to the point that, as one North Korean defector described it, left its victims looking "like pieces of sliced meat".

The story was first reported by the North Korea Daily (July 27, 2006), which described the disease as an epidemic, but no one knows just how many victims it has claimed. One defector living in South Korea told a newspaper reporter that he had spoken with some members of his family still in North Korea who informed him the "rotten flesh disease" was spreading throughout the northern provinces.

-snip-

In 2001, during the height of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad-cow disease) scare in Europe, many countries slaughtered hundreds of thousands of head of cattle in an effort to check the disease. Famine-stricken North Korea agreed to accept some of the possibly contaminated beef from Germany and Switzerland (see German meat may be North Korean poison, Asia Times Online, February 23, 2001).
-snip-
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(the writer of this article sounds racist, so be forewarned)

[BayCityProgressive]

1. I dont buy this.