Japanese Panel Rules U.S. Beef Safe Enough, Paves Way for Easing of Import Ban

By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press Writer
October 31, 2005
The Associated Press

Excerpt...

TOKYO -- Japan took a step toward resuming imports of American beef Monday when a government panel ruled the risk of mad cow infection in U.S. beef is extremely low if proper precautions are taken.

The panel forwarded its report to the full Food Safety Commission, which is expected to consider it on Wednesday.

Japan banned U.S. beef in December 2003 after the discovery of the first U.S. case of the bovine illness. At the time, Japan was the most lucrative overseas market for U.S. beef, and an increasingly impatient Washington has pushed hard for a resumption of the trade. Last week, 21 U.S. senators introduced legislation that would force President Bush to impose tariffs on Japan if it does not lift the ban.

"Based on the assumption that all precautions are taken as requested, we consider the difference in risk between U.S. and Japanese beef to be extremely small," panel chairman Yasuhiro Yoshikawa said, reading the report to his colleagues.

Media reports say the decision will lead to a resumption of imports of beef products from U.S. cows younger than 21 months old as early as the end of this year. No case of mad cow has ever been discovered in animals of that age…

…Approval by the Food Safety Commission will not automatically lift the ban, however. First, the health and agriculture ministries will hold a month of public hearings on beef safety before the government will make a decision.

Japan has tested every domestic cow for the disease since its first case in 2002, and initially demanded that the United States do the same. Japan has found 20 domestic cases of the disease so far.

U.S. authorities, however, balked at the cost of testing the huge American herd and argued that it was not scientifically necessary.

Low-cost beef-and-rice restaurants in Japan have pushed for a lifting of the ban, but finicky Japanese consumers remain deeply wary of American beef, with recent polls showing that nearly 70 percent opposed lifting the ban.

EU to Lift Four-Year Mad Cow Disease Ban on T-bone, Famous Fiorentina Steaks

By CONSTANT BRAND, Associated Press Writer
October 5, 2005
BRUSSELS, Belgium
Associated Press

Excerpt...

European Union veterinary experts recommended lifting a four-year ban on steaks on the bone Wednesday, including Italy's famous Fiorentina steaks, ending a moratorium imposed during the 2001 mad cow crisis.

The European Commission said the official return of the T-bone steak to butcher shops and kitchens could happen within the next two months, after experts accepted advice from the EU's European Food Safety Authority to raise the age limit of sales of beef with backbone to 24 months. The EU banned the sales of steaks on the bone from animals aged over 12 months in 2001, to reduce the risk of humans contracting a brain-wasting disease from eating beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known as mad cow disease...

...The Commission said experts found a "significant decline in the number of positive BSE cases detected in the EU over the past few years and the age of those positive cases has steadily increased."

A rare but fatal form of the disease in humans, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is linked to eating meat products contaminated with BSE and was blamed for about 150 deaths, most of them in Britain, beginning in 1995.

EU experts last week also issued a "satisfactory" progress report on the containment of mad cow disease in Britain, raising prospects that the ban on British beef exports may soon be lifted.

The ban was imposed in 1996 when it became clear there was a link between mad cow disease in cattle and a deadly human equivalent. The incidence of BSE in Britain has dropped from 37,280 cases in 1992 to 342 last year.