Japan's fish meal association said Wednesday it will step up security measures to prevent meat-and-bone meal from cows, a suspected cause of mad cow disease, from being mixed into their fish feed products.
The Japan Fish Meal Association said it will urge fish meal makers to tighten their security to prevent foreign matter from getting into their feed while the products are being manufactured and distributed.
As part of the measures, feed makers will be required to get a written pledge from ingredient makers that they are not using non-fish ingredients.
In addition, the association said it will conduct a survey on the contents of the fish feed and is considering requiring association feed makers to sell the feed with quality guarantees.
The association said it will also call on some 20 fish feed makers not belonging to the organization to tighten security.
So-called adjusted fish meal, a type of feed made from a mixture of powdered fish meal and meat-and-bone meal, was widely fed to cows until the government prohibited the use of meat-and-bone meal in September over its suspected link to mad cow disease.
Human consumption of cattle infected with mad cow disease is thought to cause a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder.
The first cow infected with mad cow disease in Japan was discovered Sept. 22 and a second cow and a third were found Nov. 21 and Nov. 30.