By Kim Rahn
Staff Reporter
A local court ordered an MBC investigative program to air a correction over its ``false'' reporting on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), more commonly known as mad cow disease.
The ruling came Thursday, two days after the prosecution concluded the program, ``PD Notebook,'' had intentionally distorted facts about the disease to exaggerate risks associated with American beef.
The court ruled in favor of the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which filed a lawsuit demanding PD Notebook broadcast a correction about the program.
In its April edition, the program said all ``downer'' cows were infected with BSE, while in fact there are 59 causes for such symptoms, according to the court. The program also said it was very likely that an American woman, Aretha Vinson, who died on April 9 from a neurodegenerative disease, had variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the possible human form of BSE, which also proved to be false.
``The ministry wanted PD Notebook to air a correction stating that the downer cows did not have BSE or had a low chance of having the disease. But the program corrected in a follow-up episode that BSE is one of the various reasons of downer cow symptoms. This did not satisfy the ministry's demand, so PD Notebook must air an additional correction,'' the court said.
Regarding the ministry's claim that the program concluded that Vinson died of vCJD, however, the court said, ``It was found that she did not die of the disease and PD Notebook already corrected this in the follow-up report, so the program does not need to make a further correction.''