March 10, 2004

Tests Confirms Japan Mad Cow Case

Japan confirmed another case of mad cow disease on Tuesday, its 11th since the brain-wasting illness was discovered in the country in September 2001 and the second in about two weeks.

The Agriculture Ministry said experts concluded that a 94-month-old Holstein cow in the northern main island of Hokkaido had the disease, formally know as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

In a preliminary check last Friday showed the cow might have the disease.

It comes just after the confirmation of another case on February 22, involving a cow in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo, born in March 1996.

BSE is a brain-wasting disease thought to be transmitted from animal feed containing bovine brains or spinal cord. The United States now bans the use of those materials in feed.

Scientists believe a human variant of madcow can be contracted by eating infected beef products. An outbreak in Britain and other European nations over a decade ago, when few protections were in place, has resulted in 137 human deaths so far.

There have been no reports of people being affected by the human form of the disease in Japan.

Japan's food industry, though, has been hard-hit by fallout from the disease, especially after a ban was placed on imports of U.S. beef products in December following the first case to be found in the United States.

The United States has been trying to convince Japan, formerly the top foreign buyer of U.S. beef, to resume imports. But Japan has said it wants all U.S. cattle tested for the disease, a demand the U.S. cattle industry has rejected.