USDA: Can't Say When Japan
Will Take Beef
April 06, 2004
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government cannot predict when Japan will
begin accepting U.S. beef shipments it banned following the discovery of a
case of mad cow disease in Washington state late last year, Agriculture
Secretary Ann Veneman said on Tuesday.
"It's difficult at this point to predict when we will see a Japan market
opened again," Veneman said in speech at the National Press Club.
Japan shut off imports of U.S. beef following the Dec. 23 announcement of
the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform
encephalopathy. It was the No. 1 market for U.S. beef exports until the BSE
case.
Dozens of other nations have also banned U.S. beef.
As a condition for taking U.S. beef, Japan wants the United States to test
all slaughter cattle for mad cow.
"We have resisted each Japanese requirement ... because there is no
scientifically valid basis for that," Veneman said.
She also declined to say when the United States might reopen its borders to
imports of Canadian cattle.
Japan will not end its import ban before May unless the United States
"implements the same measures as we do" to prevent mad cow disease,"
Japanese Agriculture Minister Yoshiyuki Kamei said in a letter to Veneman
made public on Tuesday.
The letter 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, and U.S. meat industry officials said that is an encouraging
sign. But they added there has been no overt change in Japan's position.
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 the food supply free of brains, spinal
cords and other central nervous system tissue -- which can carry mad cow
disease -- which has come from cattle over 30 months of age.
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 has given 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
that "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.
(Additional reporting by Randy Fabi in Washington.)