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USDA Unveils Investigation Report on Beef Exports to Japan

Posted on: Friday, 17 February 2006, 09:00 CST

By Kohei Murayama, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

Feb. 17--WASHINGTON -- U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns released Friday a report into how banned material found its way into a U.S. beef shipment to Japan, and what measures are being taken to prevent a recurrence.

In a press conference, Johanns reiterated his regret and apology while admitting the failure on the U.S. part to comply with an agreement with Japan, but again stressed the shipped beef had no safety risk under the U.S. safeguard standards on mad cow disease.

But the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in an attached audit report that the USDA's compliance enforcement "broke down" due to insufficient communications with field inspectors.

The auditors were also unable to conduct tests to fully assess the inspection procedures at the time when exports are halted, the inspector general said.

The report was triggered after a vertebral column was discovered last month at Narita airport in a U.S. veal shipment, although this and other material considered a risk of causing mad cow disease are banned under an agreement with Japan.

The discovery led Japan to reimpose its total import ban on U.S. beef on Jan. 20, only a month after the original two-year-old restriction was lifted on condition that imports are limited to meat from cattle aged up to 20 months and that brains, spinal cords and other specified materials are removed before shipment.

In the 475-page report, the USDA said, "This incident was the result of inadequate familiarity on the part of the exporter and the USDA inspector with the specific products that were eligible for shipment to Japan.""The United States acknowledged this was unacceptable because it did not meet the terms of our agreement with Japan, but emphasized that the product did not present a health risk to the public," the report said.

"As a result of our investigations, we are confident that this detection of an ineligible product in a single veal shipment does not indicate weakness in the overall U.S. beef processing or inspection or export systems," the report said.

But the independent auditors said in their attached report, "We found that the enforcement of compliance...broke down because the processes and documents used to communicate the specific plants and Japanese requirements for exports to the field inspectors were insufficient and non-specific." The auditors also said, "The scope of our work was limited because we could not perform tests to fully assess" the compliance procedures, including how plants, other than those which shipped the ineligible veal, adhered to the requirements for exporting beef to Japan.

The USDA pledged in its report to tighten the procedures and controls, and included various preventive measures such as improving communications and documentations.

The U.S. side submitted the report to Japan earlier Friday in Tokyo.

Japan has said it will not resume imports until the United States provides a convincing report. Japan was the largest overseas market for U.S. beef before the original ban was imposed in December 2003, when the first U.S. case of mad cow disease was discovered.

The incident has raised concerns in Japan about U.S. safety inspections.

Japan has also asked the United States to respond to renewed concerns about its inspection procedures after the USDA inspector general pointed out various problems in an audit report issued earlier this month.

The audit report showed that banned high-risk "downer" cattle may have reached the food chain and that auditors were unable to determine whether slaughterhouses and meat packers complied with rules to remove specified risk materials due to a lack of adequate records.

Johanns said the United States has sent a "separate binder" to Japan to address the issues.

In the January case, both the USDA and the company which shipped the veal have admitted failure to comply with the bilateral agreement.

The meat packer has expressed its regret at misinterpreting export requirements. It has been delisted from companies certified for exports to Japan.

But Johanns has repeatedly said the case did not involve any food safety concerns under the U.S. safeguard standards, which require slaughterhouses and meatpackers to remove specified risk materials from cattle aged 30 months and older.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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Source: Kyodo News International, Tokyo

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