Mad Cow Lawyer & Attorney : Marler Clark : Mad Cow Blog

Two U.S. congressmen have jointly presented a resolution calling on Japan to fully reopen its beef market to imports from the United States, Jerry Moran, one of the lawmakers said Thursday.

''It is time for Japan to fully open its markets to U.S. beef,'' said Moran, a Republican from Kansas. ''For several years now, Japan has used nonscientific standards to restrict access to high-quality U.S. beef products,'' he said.

The resolution was jointly introduced recently with Roy Blunt, a Republican from Missouri.

''Japan asks for fair treatment of their products and we are asking for the same fair treatment -- which means an adherence to internationally recognized, science-based trade standards,'' Moran said.

The release came ahead of a planned visit to Japan by U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack on April 5-9. Vilsack has said he will travel to Tokyo to ''increase export opportunities'' for U.S. farmers and ranchers.

''It is disappointing that a close ally like Japan insists on pursuing this unfair, damaging and ill-advised trade policy that not only hurts American cattlemen, but also Japanese consumers, who have always spoken clearly with their wallets in favor of American beef,'' Moran added.

Earlier this month, a bipartisan group of senators also submitted a similar resolution.

In addition, some observers say U.S. President Barack Obama's recent announcement of the doubling of U.S. exports over the next five years adds pressure on Tokyo to lift its restrictions on U.S. beef imports.

Japan and the United States are at loggerheads over Washington's insistence that Tokyo abolish its ban on imports of U.S. beef from cattle aged over 20 months.

Japan suspended all beef imports from the United States after the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease, was found in 2003. It later partially reopened the beef market with certain restrictions.

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The Alberta beef cow that is Canada's most recent case of mad cow disease was found dead on a farm and was destroyed without entering food or animal feed supplies, a spokesman with the Canadian government said on Thursday.

Canada Beef Export Federation president Ted Haney, who first confirmed the case in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, said he did not intend to suggest that the cow was slaughtered.

The animal was tested on the Alberta farm, he said on Thursday.

The 6-year-old cow's carcass was destroyed and disposed of as per Canada's requirements for specified risk materials (SRM), which are the parts of cattle that are most likely to carry mad cow disease, said Tim O'Connor of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The disease is also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

The Canadian government confirmed the case to industry officials on February 25 but did not publicly provide details on its website until late Wednesday.

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In just over a week, nearly 9000 people have joined a social networking group objecting to the Federal Government's decision to allow beef in Australia from countries affected by mad cow diseae.

The Facebook site, called Support Aussie Farmers - Say No To Imported Beef, says many consumers want imported beef clearly labelled in supermarkets.  Founder of the page, Donna Morrison from Drysdale in Victoria, says Australian consumers have a right to know exactly what they're eating.  "It just makes me so happy to find so many more people out there like myself that are passionate about this country, about its farmers and about our rights," she says.  "The majority of people and myself would prefer to support Australian farmers and back Australian farmers and eat Australian beef.

"It's the best in the world."

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