October 22, 2004

 

 

Japan, US Clash Over Mad Cow Tests at Beef Talks

 

The United States insisted Japan further ease its mad cow testing policy to meet global standards. But Japanese officials said there would be no more compromise as the two sides stayed at odds at high-level talks aimed at resuming US beef imports.

 

Japan set out its latest plan for easing a 10-month ban on US beef, telling US officials it would exclude animals aged 20 months or younger from its controversial policy of testing all cattle for mad cow disease, officials said.

 

Washington wants the 20-month threshold to be a tentative condition to allow the resumption of beef trade between the two countries, and that the limit eventually should be raised to the internationally accepted level of 30 months.

 

"We are confident that our safety policy is right," Japanese Agriculture Minister Yoshinobu Shimamura said on Friday, the second day of talks.

 

"We will not adjust to their stance. We want them to accept our policy," added Shimamura.

 

It is the first meeting of senior government officials from the two countries to discuss normalising beef trade, which came to a halt last December after the discovery of mad cow disease in the United States.

 

Japan was the biggest market for US beef before the ban was imposed 10 months ago after the discovery of a case of the deadly brain-wasting disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), in Washington state.

 

Before the ban, US beef exports to Japan were worth about $1.4 billion a year.

 

Shimamura warned that Japanese consumers might shun US beef if Japan compromised further.

 

"It is a matter of consumer trust in American beef," Shimamura said.

 

AT ODDS

 

Japan's plan to ease its policy of blanket BSE testing was based on a report compiled last month by Japan's Food Safety Commission.

 

In the report, the commission acknowledged that the youngest case of BSE found in Japan was in an animal aged 21 months, and that it was hard to detect the disease in younger animals using test methods now available.

 

But the United States has said it wants cattle under 30 months old to be exempted from testing. It currently carries out only spot tests for BSE on animals 30 months old or older.

 

Younger cattle are believed by scientists to carry the lowest risk of the illness. Humans can contract a variant of the deadly disease by eating contaminated meat.

 

At the meeting the two countries were also at odds over methods for identifying age, officials said.

 

Japan has a system that records the date of birth for all domestic cattle. But in the United States such a system is not in place, and it is difficult to determine a precise age.

 

In previous talks, US officials had said they could estimate the age of cattle by checking the maturity of meat and bones. But Japanese officials had said the method was not accurate enough.

 

Tokyo had also asked that all US cattle be tested for mad cow disease before the meat was exported to Japan, which Washington rejected as unnecessary and too costly.

 

Japan's policy of testing all cattle began in October 2001 after its first case of BSE was discovered in September that year. There have been 14 confirmed cases in Japan since.