July 1, 2004

Japanese Officials Visit The US To Seek Safety Of beef
 

On Tuesday 14 Japanese officials toured the Swift and Co. meatpacking plant in US Greeley, a feedlot, a feed mill and the CSU Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory, which also conducts BSE tests.

Beef exports to Japan once accounted for $1.2 billion of the U.S. meat market, more than any other nation.

But Japan halted beef imports in December after the discovery of the first U.S. case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, also known as mad cow disease, in Washington state.

BSE is a deadly neurological disorder that affects cattle. Fears about the disease run high because it can be transmitted to people who eat infected tissue.

U.S. officials were tight-lipped, speaking only in generalities about the purpose of the visit. Japanese officials would not comment at all.

"The Japanese government is interested primarily in protecting their customer welfare," said Lynn Heinze, vice president of information at the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

The talks came amid an announcement on Tuesday from the USDA that a rapid-screen BSE test on a carcass revealed inconclusive results.

At the CSU facility, the delegates met with BSE testing staff Barbara Powers and Charles Hibler, who demonstrated how testing is performed.

Under new USDA standards, which went into effect June 1, the scientists began Bio-Rad testing, cutting cattle brain stems under a protective cover and extracting a small 350-milligram sample from each brain stem for testing.

The laboratory processed 2,362 samples on Tuesday. All have tested negative for BSE, Powers said.