Japan consumers voice US beef worries at meeting

By Aya Takada

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese consumers voiced concerns about
a U.S. inspection system for mad cow disease at a meeting in
Tokyo on Friday sponsored by the government to discuss a
resumption of U.S. beef imports.

It was one of 10 meetings on the issue across the nation at
which government officials explained steps the United States
had promised to take not to repeat a violation of export
conditions agreed by the two nations to ensure the safety of
U.S. beef.

Japan suspended U.S. beef imports on January 20, just a
month after it partially lifted a two-year-old ban on U.S. beef
imposed over mad cow disease fears, when Japanese inspectors
discovered banned spinal material in a veal shipment from New
York.

The government has said that for an import resumption, it
is vital to dispel doubts over confidence in the export system.

Japan is considering holding high-level talks with
Washington to set preconditions for an import resumption after
the series of public meetings is completed next Monday.

But consumers, concerned about the effectiveness of the
U.S. inspection system, urged the government at the Tokyo
meeting not to be hasty in resuming imports.

“Even if they say they will comply with the export program
from now on, it is hard for us to simply accept it,” said Masae
Wada of Japanese homemakers’ organization Shufuren.

Wada also questioned how the Japanese government could
ensure all U.S. beef shipments to Japan meet the export
conditions.

Last December, Japan lifted a ban on U.S. beef and beef
offal on condition that the meat was from animals aged up to 20
months and that specified risk materials that could spread mad
cow disease, such as spinal cords, were removed before
shipment.

Hiroshi Nakagawa, the head of the farm ministry’s food
safety and consumer affairs bureau, said a decision on what
measures to take would be based on results of a re-audit by the
U.S. government of meat plants certified as beef exporters to
Japan.

“We will do our best to prevent a recurrence of similar
incidents,” Nakagawa said while admitting that it was hard to
prevent human error.

Yasuaki Yamaura, vice chair of Consumers Union of Japan,
asked the government to keep a ban on U.S. beef imports, saying
U.S. safety measures against mad cow disease were insufficient.

But officials from the Japanese food industry, who were
among 310 participants at the Tokyo meeting, urged the
government to allow them to resume imports of U.S. beef as soon
as possible.

“The Japanese safety standards are too strict,” one
official said, referring to the standard endorsed by an
international animal health organization that beef from animals
aged under 30 months can be traded on the world market.

He said it was a waste of taxpayers’ money for the
government to continue shouldering the cost of testing all
domestic cattle for mad cow disease, while admitting it is
unnecessary to test cattle younger than 21 months.

Beef has become a thorny issue in relations between Japan
and its closest ally. Before the initial ban, Japan was the top
importer of U.S. beef, buying 240,000 tons valued at $1.4
billion in 2003.

Mad cow disease, formally called bovine spongiform
encephalopathy (BSE), is believed to be caused by malformed
proteins and spread through infected feed.

The human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is thought to
be spread by eating contaminated meat. It has caused more than
160 deaths worldwide, including one in Japan.