The Cultural Analysis of 2010-2011 Foot and Mouth Disease Massacre in Korea

Abstract

Between January 2010 and March 2011, there were three outbreaks of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in South Korea. Over 3.45 million animals (5,660 farms) were slaughtered, which was 33.3% of the existing pigs, 8.4% of dairy cows and 3.4% of cattle. FMD disaster costs were estimated at around three billion Korean won. Nine civil servants were killed, over 150 people were wounded and 4,788 landfills were confronted with a pollution problem. Vaccination and slaughter are the two basic alternatives for eradication of FMD. Although slaughter is more violent, risky and expensive than vaccination, the Korean government had chosen only slaughter eradication by the end of 2010. Even though over three million animals were killed, FMD spread out over most of the country. Finally, the government chose to begin vaccination. Following vaccination, outbreaks decreased dramatically. The purpose of this report is a cultural analysis of the related decision-making process, laws and systems. For the culture analysis, we utilize interviews, symposiums, laws, FMD manual, government reports and press releases. In conclusion, we found that the FMD massacre was influenced by cultural and organizational factors. The cultural factors were economism, cheapening of the value of life, biased perceptions and fears. The organizational factors were a closed process of decision-making, monopoly system, a small homogeneous group and group-think. Therefore, more studies will be needed for those factors of FMD disasters in national-scale cases.

Proper Quality Control of Formulated Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccines in Countries with Prophylactic Vaccination is Necessary

“…The Netherlands (2001), South Korea (2000 and 2010/2011) and Japan (2010) have used emergency vaccination after an incursion of FMD. Either no FMD was detected within 3–4 weeks after all at‐risk animals were vaccinated (Bouma et al., ; Park et al., ; Muroga et al., ), or vaccination reduced the incidence of the disease dramatically (Kim et al., ). These examples have been followed in many parts of the world where FMD is endemic or where incursions of FMD virus from the neighbouring countries occur.…”

Effect Verification of Liquid Fertilizer Derived from Pig Cadavers on Crop Growth and Soil Properties

“…현행법상으로는 살처분 가축을 매몰할 경우, 3년간 매몰지 사용이 불가하 며, 환경부에서 지정한 매몰지 선정기준에 근거한 매몰지는 이미 포화된 상태이다 (Cho and Kim, 2012;MIFAFF, 2015). 또한 매몰 과정 중 발생되는 침출수누수, 악취발생 등은 주변의 토양, 지하수, 하천 등 2차 환경오염을 일으키 고 있다 (Kim et al, 2011;Choi et al, 2012b). (Choi et al, 2012a).…”