A key advisory panel on mad cow disease called on the government Monday to ease its stance on testing of the disease in a manner that would clear the way for a resumption in imports of U.S. beef.
The ad hoc panel on bovine spongiform encephalopathy, a subcommittee of the governmental Food Safety Commission, made the recommendation on grounds that BSE cannot be detected in cows aged 20 months or younger using the current testing method, panel members said.
The recommendation effectively calls on the government to exclude beef cattle under this age from tests for the brain-wasting disease, marking a de facto U-turn from the country's three-year-old wholesale testing regime. If the commission endorses the recommendation, the government will launch deliberations on ending the wholesale testing program, which has been in place since October 2001.