Bc-beef
November 28, 2005
Associated Press / Kyodo
OSAKAóThe United States urged Japan anew Monday to end the two-year-old import ban on North American-grown beef, saying Japan has not lived up to last year's agreement to end the ban.
Daniel Berman, minister-counselor for agricultural affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, told a news conference that more than a year has elapsed since the Japanese government agreed in October last year to grant the U.S. request to restart imports.
At that time, Japan said it would recommence imports of beef from cattle aged up to 20 months at an early date without setting a date for resumption.
The ban was imposed following the discovery in 2003 of the first cases of mad cow disease among cattle at U.S. and Canadian farms. The brain-wasting disease is formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
But Berman said the safety of North American beef products has been confirmed, now that North American producers have adopted a system for removing such specified risk materials as the brain and spinal cord from slaughtered cattle.
Japan is widely expected to end the ban next month following last month's adoption by a governmental advisory panel of a draft report recommending a resumption of imports.
Berman appears to have made the demand for a resumption in order to ensure that the ban be ended in light of the absence of a formal decision by the Japanese government to scrap it.
On Oct. 31, the advisory panel adopted the report recommending that the ban be terminated for imports of beef from cattle aged up to 20 months, fueling expectations that the imports will be authorized in December.
But strong safety concern has hounded Japanese consumers because the United States has not obliged beef producers to test beef from all slaughtered cattle for the disease.
On this point, Berman suggested that beef from relatively young cattle may test negative as the disease's pathogen does not accumulate in such cattle to the point of testing positiveóeven if the United States introduces blanket testing for all slaughtered cattle.
The pathogen accumulates in an animal's body parts as it ages.
If the specified risk materials are removed, beef is safe like "fugu" globefish, which is eaten after removing its specified poisonous parts, Berman said.
The disease, which destroys brain tissue and gives it a spongy appearance, is believed to be caused by abnormal prions, a type of protein. Under the current examination methods, the disease has never been detected in cows aged up to 20 months.
