My name is Daniel. I was an English teacher in Seoul, South Korea, and I am now a writer and scholar who has written a couple of books including South Korea: Our Story by Daniel Nardini.

                       It was something I remember all too clearly. Hundreds of thousands of people in Seoul marching and demonstrating against the importation of American beef because it was thought to have been badly tainted with Mad Cow disease. Those Korean business owners who bought American beef were publicly shamed, and Koreans were urged to not buy or eat American beef because it was "poisonous." It was in my view one of the saddest disinformation campaigns of all time. The only cows in the United States that had been infected by the Mad Cow disease had actually been imported from Great Britain where the disease actually started. Also, four American deaths attributed to Mad Cow disease had been contracted by those Americans outside the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, then as now, takes Mad Cow extremely seriously, and has done all it can to prevent this disease from getting into the U.S. beef food chain. At the same time, there were those in South Korea who tried to damage trade between the United States and South Korea by falsely claiming that most or all of American beef was tainted with Mad Cow disease. These people had completely lied about America's beef supply to cause a dangerous rift between the two countries. These forces forced then South Korean President Lee Myung-bak to apologize and trying to restrict American beef. The danger here is that fear and hysteria created by those with ulterior motives (like leftist and pro-North Korea people) can be used again.