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From: TSS ()
NCBA enlists President Bush to assist with South Korea trade problems In a letter written Friday, John complained that Korean inspectors initially were "sluggish" in visiting the 36 U.S. plants they ultimately approved for export; that once plants were approved, the Korean media continued to make "contemptible" claims about the quality of U.S. beef; and that inspectors have since taken weeks to inspect shipments of beef to Korea, only to reject them. "We now see that clearly that [South Korea's promises to accept boneless beef] were empty … as South Korea simply refuses to play by the rules," John wrote. The letter arrived on the heels of news that South Korea suspended imports of U.S. beef from a Hastings, Neb., plant owned by Premium Protein Products after inspectors discovered bone fragments in a shipment. A week earlier, South Korea suspended U.S. beef imports from Arkansas City, Kan.-based Creekstone Premium Beef after a fingernail-size bone fragment was found in a shipment. As a condition of reopening its border to U.S. beef, South Korea accepts only boneless cuts of U.S. beef on fears of bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Korea's Agriculture and Forestry Ministry indicated on Friday that fragments from the Hastings and Arkansas City plants weren't considered risk materials for BSE Meantime, American Meat Institute President J. Patrick Boyle said he agreed with Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns' contention that South Korea's standards aren't based on science. "South Korea's standards are commercially unachievable and offer no opportunity for resumption of trade between our two nations," Boyle said. "It is time that all nations adhere to international health standards set by OIE." OIE standards indicate that many bone-in cuts of beef are safe from potential transmission of BSE. Shipments of U.S. beef to South Korea resumed in late October but, thus far, U.S. meat has yet to appear on store shelves there. http://www.meatingplace.com/MembersOnly/webNews/details.aspx?item=16917 i laughed so hard i hurt my side when i read this article, and it's probably the worst thing that could happen, so it is not really funny at all, it is in fact, very disturbing. thought i might update you on my madcow speech in S. Korea Nov. 23. i have taken your advice. i was getting passport in order, i had to buy ticket and they reimburse me later, but i had to have ticket in hand at passport office to get expedited passport in 48 hours, i was to fly out monday (19 hour flight). after much thought, after seeing the headlines this AM (see picture of protests etc. and letter to me from Head of the Democratic Labor Party Parliamentary Committee on the Korea-US ), plus i was reminded of your wisdom (cold lone star beer only here), the fact if i got locked up there i did not think you would be the presiding Judge, and all that cold beer here in bacliff and san leon, and the fact i was looking forward to turkey and not susi, i will be staying home. i can just as easily send them what they need via email... there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home. ... terry By Kim Yon-se A protester holds an effigy symbolizing imported U.S. beef at a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, Thursday. An opposition party has launched a campaign to buy up and destroy U.S. beef that will soon go on sale after 3-year import ban. / AP-Yonhap An NGO chief said that there is no domestic regulation that allows for X-ray testing of beef. He added that the distribution of X-rayed beef without a revision of the law is risky. Amid the protests, the National Veterinary Research & Quarantine Service, the state-run agency in charge of the inspection decided to delay it. The beef was part of the consignment that arrived in Korea last month. Korea decided to resume the import of U.S. beef last January. A ban was imposed in December 2003 after mad cow disease cases were reported. The Korea Federation of Medical Groups for Health Rights, a medical-pharmaceutical lobby group, has argued that there is no way for inspectors to detect specified risk material (SRM), including spinal cord, so the tests were not effective. SRMs are the animal parts most likely to contain the mad cow disease ``prion,¡¯¡¯ a protein particle that lacks nucleic acid, which can cause the deadly variant Cruetzfeldt-Jacob disease in humans. The federation alleged that the ministry intentionally delayed the X-ray inspection date for the first beef shipment to Nov. 16 from its scheduled date of Nov. 7. In its letter to the U.S. on Nov. 9, Korea said it would not regard three parts _ cartilage, breast-bone and bone chips _ as SRMs. The decision means that the Korean government will not ban U.S. beef imports again even if bone chips are found in the product. Korea is only allowed to ban imports from U.S. slaughterhouses that exported beef with bones. A ministry official agreed that the X-ray system could not detect all risky parts. ``We plan additional inspections by selecting samples,¡¯¡¯ the official said. kys@koreatimes.co.kr 11-16-2006 22:40 ----- Original Message ----- Legislative Assistant National Assembly Republic of Korea Greetings from Korea. Sincerely, Sim Sang-Jeong Head of the Democratic Labor Party Parliamentary Committee on the Korea-US FTA Member of the National Assembly Republic of Korea ************** Dear Terry S. Singeltary Sr. Many thanks for your prompt reply. We are very glad to feel your enthusiasm and to hear your message that you are happy about our invitation and your. As the session is going to be held on 23rd of November, you should arrive in Seoul at least until 22nd of this month. We would be grateful if you would let us know whether you can make all preparation for this travel (ex. passport, visa etc.), then we will send you the invitation and the return ticket when you can do this. with very best regards, Seoungwon Lee ----- Original Message ----- Hello Honorable Seoungwon Lee and Honorable Sim Sang-Jeong, Connect in Atlanta (Hartsfield Intl.) Connect in Seattle (SEA) Volume 12, Number 12–December 2006 On the Question of Sporadic or Atypical Bovine SpongiformEncephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Paul Brown,* Lisa M. McShane,† Gianluigi Zanusso,‡ and Linda Detwiler§ Strategies to investigate the possible existence of sporadic bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) require systematic testing programs to identify cases in countries considered to have little or no risk for orally acquired disease, or to detect a stable occurrence of atypical cases in countries in which orally acquired disease is disappearing. To achieve 95% statistical confidence that the prevalence of sporadic BSE is no greater than 1 per million (i.e., the annual incidence of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease [CJD] in humans) would require negative tests in 3 million randomly selected older cattle. A link between BSE and sporadic CJD has been suggested on the basis of laboratory studies but is unsupported by epidemiologic observation. Such a link might yet be established by the discovery of a specific molecular marker or of particular combinations of trends over time of typical and atypical BSE and various subtypes of sporadic CJD, as their numbers are influenced by a continuation of current public health measures that exclude high-risk bovine tissues from the animal and human food chains. Whether humans might be more susceptible to atypical forms of BSE cannot be answered at this time. Experimentally transmitted BASE shows shorter incubation periods than BSE in at least 1 breed of cattle, bovinized transgenic mice, and Cynomolgus monkeys (12,13). In humanized transgenic mice, BASE transmitted, whereas typical BSE did not transmit (13). Paradoxically, the other major phenotype (H) showed an unusually long incubation period in bovinized transgenic mice (12). The limited experimental evidence bearing on a possible relationship between BSE and sporadic CJD is difficult to interpret. The original atypical BASE strain of BSE had a molecular protein signature very similar to that of 1 subtype (type 2 M/V) of sporadic CJD in humans (5). In another study, a strain of typical BSE injected into humanized mice encoding valine at codon 129 showed a glycopattern indistinguishable from the same subtype of sporadic CJD (15). In a third study, the glycopatterns of both the H and L strains of atypical BSE evidently did not resemble any of the known sporadic CJD subtypes (12). To these molecular biology observations can be added the epidemiologic data accumulated during the past 30 years. The hypothesis that at least some cases of apparently sporadic CJD are due to unrecognized BSE infections cannot be formally refuted, but if correct, we might expect by now to have some epidemiologic evidence linking BSE to at least 1 cluster of apparently sporadic cases of CJD. Although only a few clusters have been found (and still fewer published), every proposed cluster that has been investigated has failed to show any common exposure to bovines. For that matter, no common exposure has been shown to any environmental vehicles of infection, including the consumption of foodstuffs from bovine, ovine, and porcine sources, the 3 livestock species known to be susceptible to transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Additional negative evidence comes from several large case-control studies in which no statistically significant dietary differences were observed between patients with sporadic CJD and controls (16,17). On the other hand, the difficulty of establishing a link between BSE and CJD may be compounded by our ignorance of the infectious parameters of a sporadic form of BSE (e.g., host range, tissue distribution of infectivity, route of transmission, minimum infectious dose for humans, whether single or multiple). Presumably, these parameters would resemble those of variant CJD; that is, high infectivity central nervous system and lymphoreticular tissues of an infected cow find their way into products consumed by humans. Transmissions that might have occurred in the past would be difficult to detect because meat products are generally not distributed in a way that results in detectable geographic clusters. Barring the discovery of a specific molecular signature (as in variant CJD), the most convincing clue to an association will come from the observation of trends over time of the incidence of typical and atypical BSE and of sporadic and variant CJD. With 4 diseases, each of which could have increasing, unchanging, or decreasing trends, there could be 81 (34) possible different combinations. However, it is highly likely that the trends for typical BSE and variant CJD will both decrease in parallel as feed bans continue to interrupt recycled contamination. The remaining combinations are thus reduced to 9 (32), and some of them could be highly informative. For example, if the incidence of atypical BSE declines in parallel with that of typical BSE, its candidacy as a sporadic form of disease would be eliminated (because sporadic disease would not be influenced by current measures to prevent oral infection). If, on the other hand, atypical BSE continues to occur as typical BSE disappears, this would be a strong indication that it is indeed sporadic, and if in addition at least 1 form of what is presently considered as sporadic CJD (such as the type 2 M/V subtype shown to have a Western blot signature like BASE) were to increase, this would suggest (although not prove) a causal relationship (Figure 5). Recognition of the different forms of BSE and CJD depends upon continuing systematic testing for both bovines and humans, but bovine testing will be vulnerable to heavy pressure from industry to dismantle the program as the commercial impact of declining BSE cases ceases to be an issue. Industry should be aware, however, of the implications of sporadic BSE. Its occurrence would necessitate the indefinite retention of all of the public health measures that exclude high-risk bovine tissues from the animal and human food chains, whereas its nonoccurrence would permit tissues that are now destroyed to be used as before, once orally acquired BSE has disappeared. snip...end...TSS http://www.cdc.gov 3:30 Transmission of the Italian Atypical BSE (BASE) in Humanized Mouse Models He estimates that it may be up to 14 or 15 persons which display selectively SPRPSC and practically no detected RPRPSC proteins. Research Project: Study of Atypical Bse Location: Virus and Prion Diseases of Livestock Project Number: 3625-32000-073-07 Project Type: Specific C/A Start Date: Sep 15, 2004 End Date: Sep 14, 2007 Objective: The objective of this cooperative research project with Dr. Maria Caramelli from the Italian BSE Reference Laboratory in Turin, Italy, is to conduct comparative studies with the U.S. bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) isolate and the atypical BSE isolates identified in Italy. The studies will cover the following areas: 1. Evaluation of present diagnostics tools used in the U.S. for the detection of atypical BSE cases. 2. Molecular comparison of the U.S. BSE isolate and other typical BSE isolates with atypical BSE cases. 3. Studies on transmissibility and tissue distribution of atypical BSE isolates in cattle and other species. Approach: This project will be done as a Specific Cooperative Agreement with the Italian BSE Reference Laboratory, Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale del Piemonte, in Turin, Italy. It is essential for the U.S. BSE surveillance program to analyze the effectiveness of the U.S diagnostic tools for detection of atypical cases of BSE. Molecular comparisons of the U.S. BSE isolate with atypical BSE isolates will provide further characterization of the U.S. BSE isolate. Transmission studies are already underway using brain homogenates from atypical BSE cases into mice, cattle and sheep. It will be critical to see whether the atypical BSE isolates behave similarly to typical BSE isolates in terms of transmissibility and disease pathogenesis. If transmission occurs, tissue distribution comparisons will be made between cattle infected with the atypical BSE isolate and the U.S. BSE isolate. Differences in tissue distribution could require new regulations regarding specific risk material (SRM) removal. http://www.ars.usda.gov/research/projects/projects.htm?ACCN_NO=408490 Page 5 of 98 8/3/2006 snip... http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/Comments/2006-0011/2006-0011-1.pdf [Docket No. 03-025IFA] FSIS Prohibition of the Use of Specified Risk 03-025IFA THE SEVEN SCIENTIST REPORT *** Full Text Diagnosis and Reporting of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Singeltary, Sr et al. JAMA.2001; 285: 733-734. http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/285/6/733?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=dignosing+and+reporting+creutzfeldt+jakob+disease&searchid=1048865596978_1528&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&journalcode=jama BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL BMJ P.O. Box 42 Bacliff, Texas USA 77518 ----- Original Message ----- snip...end...TSS ----- Original Message ----- thanks judge!!! mass protest and violence in s korea ; http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200611/200611230009.html http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200611/kt2006112217570710510.htm http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/11/23/200611230044.asp http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/173556.html http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/data/html_dir/2006/11/23/200611230009.asp HOWEVER ;-) kindes regards, and happy holidays, terry and bonnie
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