Legitimate Beef.

• Author: Hightower, Jim Allen
• Position: The Lowdown - Viewpoint essay

What is it with those kooky South Koreans? Tens of thousands of them rushed into the streets to protest--get this--beef. Specifically, beef imported from the United States. Are they nuts? Or, do they know something we don't?

South Koreans are rejecting our steaks and burgers because of the widespread belief there that America's industrialized production process brings a deadly dose of Mad Cow disease to the plate. Once the third largest importer of U.S. beef, South Korea shut its ports to our product after the brain-wasting livestock disease was confirmed in America in 2003. This April, however, President Lee Myung-bak gave in to industry pressure and issued an edict that lifted his country's ban.

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Bad move. Consumers, furious that he would sell out their nation's health to global trade hucksters, exploded all over Lee, who became the first Korean president brought to his knees by steak. He was forced to apologize for his mishandling of the issue, he fired all but one of his top aides, the entire cabinet submitted their resignations, and he hastily renegotiated a trimmed deal with American officials.

Still, the protests continued, with insistent demands for Lee's hide, and he resorted to a heavy-handed police crackdown. Despite allowing a small amount of U.S. beef into the country, major supermarkets and restaurants refuse to sell it, and even McDonald's stresses in its ads that its Korean franchises make their burgers with Australian beef. When Condoleezza Rice made a June diplomatic visit to Seoul, she was greeted with protest placards demanding, "Stop Rice and Mad Cow."

The official American response is to depict South Koreans as silly consumers, scared of a bugaboo in their burgers. But is it a bugaboo?

The ones being silly are our own ag officials and corporate beef purveyors. They could easily assure our Korean customers that the beef we ship to them is free of Mad Cow disease by conducting a test on each cow as it goes to slaughter. Called rapid test, this cheap, simple, reliable screening can detect the disease...