The debate has now shifted from damage to our livestock farmers to mad cow disease. United Democratic Party chairman Sohn Hak-kyu explained the situation most accurately when he said, "Public perception is no less important than rational judgement." He is right. No matter how you stress that no U.S. cow born since 1997 has contracted BSE, and that no American has ever caught vCJD, the human form of mad cow disease, 70-80 percent of the public believe that BSE-infected U.S. beef will be imported into the country.

And from that point of view, public perception is essentially that the government is attempting to kill the people. This goes far beyond our livestock farmers. It brings about a situation in which the government is the enemy.

Will the rich and powerful eat U.S beef? the public asks. President Lee Myung-bak and his administration should listen to this voice.

Before anyone else, the president and his ministers must be seen eating American beef. They should eat oxtail soup, marrow and tripe, and soup cooked with bones. People are particularly concerned about beef from cattle aged 30 months or older. It's no use telling them 100 times that Americans eat beef from cattle aged 30 months or older much more often than beef from younger animals, and that no mad cow disease has ever affected U.S. cattle under 120 months. A far more effective way for the chief executive to communicate with the public will be for him to eat a burger from an American cow that was 30 months old or older.

One-time test stunts will only invite ill feeling, so the president will have to promise to eat U.S. beef two or three times a month for a year. If possible, he should do it with his family. He should let his grandchildren, too, eat such beef. If he hesitates even slightly, how can he tell the people to eat it? It is absurd for a government that concluded the beef deal so abruptly and even mistranslated the terminology not to take at least this much trouble.

Of course it is preposterous for the president and his ministers to have to eat American beef for demonstration purposes, but there we are.

I would rather like the president and ministers to eat chicken soup and duck meat twice or three times a month as well. No matter how you stress that chicken and duck meat, once cooked, are safe, the public does not trust you. Eating too much meat will no doubt increase the Cabinet’s weight and cholesterol level, but it will serve to boost public trust.

Next, any citizens who wish to eat U.S. beef must be allowed to do so. The current atmosphere does not make it easy for shops to sell U.S. beef, and the rights of citizens who want to eat American beef and can afford no other must be guaranteed.

More important still is to permit citizens who don’t want to eat U.S. beef not to. Some may say nobody is forced to. But if restaurants deceive their customers about the country of origin of the beef they serve, patrons could eat American beef without knowing it. Or if U.S. beef is used for group meals, customers will have no alternative but to eat it. Rules on the labeling of country of origin must therefore be strictly enforced.

There are also people who must never eat U.S. beef. These are the people who fabricated the rumor that if you eat American beef you will come down with vCJD, and the politicians who took advantage of it. I believe they will never eat U.S. beef anyway, but just in case they ever do, let us make sure we shame them publicly.