Japanese Stores Pull U.S. Beef Off Shelves

By HIROKO TABUCHI

TOKYO – Japanese stores pulled U.S. beef products from their shelves amid renewed fears of mad cow disease on Saturday, a day after the government said a recent shipment from New York contained cattle parts that are a disease risk.

Japan announced Friday it would hold all American beef at ports until the U.S. delivers a report on how prohibited cattle backbone got into a shipment from Atlantic Veal & Lamb Inc. The measure came two weeks after Tokyo lifted a two-year ban on U.S. beef imports.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns promised Saturday to deliver the report "immediately." He sent inspectors to Japan and ordered unannounced checks at U.S. plants, calling the problem "an unacceptable failure" to meet Japan’s requirements.

Kyodo News agency reported that Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe will lodge a formal protest with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick on Monday. Zoellick was scheduled to arrive in Japan on Saturday for talks on a range of political and economic issues.

Japanese businesses responded quickly to the suspension of U.S. beef.

Yoshinoya D&C Co., which runs a popular beef-and-rice chain, announced Saturday it had postponed plans to reintroduce U.S. beef at its 1,016 restaurants across the country, citing "grave problems with U.S. compliance standards." The company stopped using U.S. beef in February 2004.

Major deli chain Rock Field Co., Ltd. said it would pull all U.S. beef products from its stores until consumer confidence was restored. The chain, based in Kobe, western Japan, had only reintroduced U.S. beef earlier this week, said spokesman Masao Takehara.

"With all this negative publicity, consumers might not trust U.S. beef for a while" even if imports were resumed, he said.

Once the most lucrative market for American beef, Japan imposed a blanket ban on imports in December 2003 after mad cow disease was first discovered in a U.S. cow.

The ban was lifted Dec. 12, but only for meat from cows ages 20 months or younger, which are believed unlikely to have the disease. The deal excluded spines, brains, bone marrow and other cattle parts thought to be at high risk of containing the ailment.

Japan imported about $1.4 billion worth of U.S. beef in 2003. It was unclear how much the country bought after lifting the ban, but a Kyodo News survey last month showed 75 percent of Japanese were unwilling to eat American beef even if imports resumed.

Criticism was also directed at Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi’s government for too hastily resuming imports.

"The government bowed to U.S. pressure and put President Bush’s wishes ahead of the safety of Japanese consumers. I consider that a huge error of judgment," said Yukio Hatoyama, secretary-general of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan.

Koizumi ordered the resumption of imports based on recommendations made by an expert panel after several U.S. officials, including Bush, expressed growing impatience with the ban.

The premier has defended the decision, saying it was based on scientific grounds.

Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, a degenerative nerve disease in cattle that is linked to the rare, fatal human nerve disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

There have been two cases of BSE in the United States and 21 cases in Japan, but Japan now tests all its cattle for the disease.