U.S. Gets Favorable Rating On Mad-Cow Risk Level
Washington - The World Organization for Animal Health voted Tuesday to grant the U.S. and Canada a favorable "controlled" risk status for mad-cow disease, something the countries hope to use as a new negotiating tool to open up beef markets still closed or partially closed to beef exports.
Glaieul Mamaghani, a spokeswoman for organization, known commonly by the French acronym OIE, said the vote was "unanimous" by the organization's members for both the U.S. and Canada.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a prepared statement: "We will use this international validation to urge our trading partners to reopen export markets to the full spectrum of U.S. cattle and beef products."
Most major beef-importing countries banned U.S. beef in December 2003 after the first case of mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was discovered here. The disease can be transmitted to humans by eating tainted meat. Barriers to U.S. beef have loosened or been removed since then as the U.S. implemented new surveillance and food-safety measures, but countries such as Japan and South Korea still maintain costly restrictions on U.S. exports that the U.S. would like to see removed.
