June 27, 2005

Taiwan reinstates US beef ban following latest BSE case
 

Taiwan has reinstated a ban on US beef imports after a second case of mad cow disease, or BSE, was confirmed by a British laboratory recently. The government said that the ban would take effect immediately.

An initial Taiwanese ban was partially lifted on US beef in March following a government decision that safety concerns had been alleviated.

Japan and Korea have decided that they would wait for more information from the US government before discussing about lifting their current bans on US beef.

Japan also expressed the need to examine US testing accuracy and the extent of the disease there.

Meanwhile, the Canadian government stated that it has no intention of closing its borders to US beef despite the latest confirmation, which should reduce American resistance to lifting the US ban on live Canadian cattle.

In response, the US government felt that a better testing system would be needed despite stressing the effectiveness of current screening procedures. The USDA may consider the Western blot test as used in Japan and Europe, according to reports.

A US beef industry spokesman reported that only this case has arisen after more than 388,000 targeted animals at highest risk of BSE were tested since June 2004, confirming that BSE risk in the US cattle population must be extremely low.