» Rep. Kang Ki-gap of the minor opposition Democratic Labor Party unveils a document created by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in September at the National Assembly on May 5. The document says that U.S. beef is not free from risks associated with mad cow disease, a change from the ministry’s current position that the meat is safe.

At a press conference on May 5, Rep. Kang Ki-kap of the minor Democratic Labor Party disclosed documents that prove the administration of President Lee Myung-bak disregarded a key set of rules established by the previous administration on age limitations for cattle and the importation of specified risk materials in beef negotiations concluded between South Korea and the U.S. on April 18. The rules were established by the previous administration of Roh Moo-hyun due to concerns about mad cow disease and a case of the disease found in 2006 in the United States.

The documents were prepared by the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forest and Fisheries in September, while the previous administration was still in office. In the documents, prepared after consultations with experts, the ministry states that U.S. beef was not safe from mad cow disease. It has changed its tone following the conclusion of been negotiations.

According to the documents prepared ahead of the beef negotiations, the previous administration established that South Korea should maintain the age limitation because the World Organization for Animal Health, or the OIE, does not guarantee the safety of meat from cows older than 30 months. The government concluded that Koreans are more vulnerable to mad cow disease due to certain genetic characteristics and the fact that they consume a wide range of foods made from cows, which led it to add bones to a list of seven SRMs, regardless of the age of the cattle from which the meat was derived, on its import blacklist.

Before Lee took office in February, the ministry briefed his transition team on the report and a negotiation strategy that took the conditions set by the previous administration on the resumption of U.S. beef imports into account.

Once the negotiations on beef imports were complete, the ministry emphasized the safety of U.S. beef, but the documents note that the United States ignored food security because it did not conduct a thorough follow-up examination after a case of mad cow disease was discovered. The ministry report also notes that the United States excludes ordinary cows from examination.

Rep. Kang said, “The documents say that the ministry will actively deal with negotiations with the U.S. based on nine international research papers related to mad cow disease that were published after May 2005, and the results of an investigation conducted by the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service.”

Kang argued that the South Korean government had lied in reaching the beef agreement with the United States, because it said that it could not help but follow OIE standards because there was no scientific evidence of mad cow disease.

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