The government is inclined to change its stance on testing for mad cow disease to pave the way for resuming imports of beef from the United States, government sources said Thursday.
While all slaughtered cattle are now tested for mad cow disease, cows younger than 20 months will likely be excluded from the testing because existing test methods cannot readily detect the disease in young animals, the sources said.
The brain-wasting disease only becomes detectable when a type of protein -- known as a prion -- accumulates in the brain of cattle, making currently available testing measures inapplicable to young animals, according to experts.