Japan Says No End to Beef Ban Before May
Date: 07-Apr-04
Country: USA
Agriculture Minister Yoshiyuki Kamei's letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman said the two nations needed to reach a consensus on how to assure beef is safe from the brain-wasting disease, but it did not repeat Japan's previous demand that all U.S. beef it imports be tested.
U.S. meat industry officials noted the letter did not mention 100 percent testing of U.S. cattle - potentially an encouraging sign - but said there has been no overt change in position.
Kamei said in the letter that "careful discussions are necessary" to assess the U.S. risk of mad cow disease. Japan shut off imports of U.S. beef following the Dec. 23 announcement of the first U.S. case of mad cow, formally named bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
"Therefore, I think it is impossible to conclude this issue by the end of April unless the United States implements the same measures as we do," Kamei wrote, according to a provisional translation by USDA.
American officials say 100 percent testing is unnecessary because BSE is found only in older animals. They say U.S. beef is safe because animal scraps are banned in cattle feed and meat packers are required to keep brains, spinal cords and other central nervous system tissue from cattle over 30 months of age out of the food supply.
Japan was the No. 1 market for U.S. beef exports until the BSE case. Dozens of other nations have also banned U.S. beef.
Vice President Richard Cheney was scheduled to visit Japan in mid-April, and industry officials say the beef-ban issue will be discussed. The Bush administration was giving high priority to restoring U.S. beef exports.
Last week, Veneman and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said they were disappointed Japan was unwilling to submit the disagreement over testing and mad cow safeguards to the World Organization for Animal Health, known under its French abbreviation OIE.
Kamei's letter, dated April 2, declined the U.S. suggestion of a speedy OIE review.
"Unless the OIE rules are established so that Japan can also agree with them, it is difficult, and our public would not be convinced" by a special OIE ruling, he wrote.
USDA has yet to rule on a request by Creekstone Farms Premium Beef to independently test all its cattle for BSE as a step to assure overseas customers.
U.S. officials were expected to respond this week to questions raised by Japan over U.S. surveillance testing of cattle for BSE, new restrictions on use of animal parts in livestock feed, and details of procedures to ensure nervous system tissue and other "specified risk materials" are kept out of the food supply.
Scientists believe mad cow disease can be spread through consumption of tainted feed containing misshaped proteins called prions.
