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Opinion

Medium-rare, please!

By Scott T. Hards


ミディアムレアでお願いします

日本で2頭目の狂牛病発見は、牛肉の消費低迷に追い打ちをかけている。しかし現在は汚染された肉が市場に出回らないように徹底的な検査がなされているのだから、牛畜産関係者や焼肉店が早く以前のような商売を復活できるといいと思う。

It was staring back at me from inside the refrigerated display case. The white veins of fat were intermingled perfectly with the muscle. This cut of Matsuzaka beef was one of the finest steaks I'd ever seen, and it was 60 percent off the regular price. I couldn't resist, and words are not adequate to describe the gourmet ecstasy I experienced a few hours later!

That's not the only cheap beef I've enjoyed lately. I love yakiniku (Korean barbecue) as well, and many restaurants have been running half-price sales. Of course, the reason for all this cheap meat is the mad cow disease scare that's been devastating Japan's beef industry for the past several weeks.

My favorite yakiniku restaurant's owner tells me her sales have dropped about 70 percent since that first sick cow was confirmed. Some butcher shops have been hit even harder, and there is anecdotal evidence of stores being closed, too. Even McDonald's Japan, despite serving only imported beef, saw their year-to-year sales fall 16 percent in October. Why all this panic over two sick cows?

One of the culprits in making the situation seem worse than actuality is the mass media's shallow reporting. We've seen numerous reports about what happens to cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), and stories about the victims of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease in Great Britain, but almost nothing about the fact that the connection between the two is poorly understood.

At this point, scientists don't know if meat from cows with BSE causes the disease in humans, or if it's just consumption of the brain or other organs that transmit it. Nor does anyone know yet how much tissue tainted with a mutated protein, called a prion, needs to be ingested to cause a problem, or how long it takes for the disease to appear. Without these key facts, the danger was implied to be much greater than it probably is.

A second factor was the Japanese government's handling of the situation. The problem here was not the response after a sick cow was confirmed Eactually, I think they did a pretty good job in getting suspect products off the market quickly. What is unforgivable, however, is the fact that experts overseas have been pointing out for years that adding ground bone, brain and other by-products from sick cows to the feed of healthy ones is probably the leading cause of the disease's spread. But until the crisis surfaced, Japanese agricultural officials had done nothing to stop the use of these leftovers in feed here.

Against this background, it's hardly surprising that beef consumption plummeted. What is surprising, however, is that sales are still depressed weeks after a thorough inspection system to prevent tainted meat from reaching the market was started. Concern was certainly warranted a few weeks ago, but the risk has now passed and it's time to get back to those great steaks and burgers.

No matter how much I love all these sale prices, I don't know what I'd do if my favorite yakiniku restaurant were to close for good! Let's all do our part to keep these folks in business. Pass the ketchup!


Shukan ST: Dec. 7, 2001

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