The health and farm ministries will present policy blueprints aimed at easing blanket testing for mad cow disease to an advisory panel as early as Friday, setting the stage for a resumption of U.S. beef imports, sources said Wednesday.
After the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry make their proposals to the Food Safety Commission in the Cabinet Office, the government will resume full-scale talks later this month with the United States on the conditions for lifting the ban on U.S. beef imports, the sources said.
The ministries will call on the government to exclude checks on cattle aged 20 months or younger and will ask that the U.S. destroy all bovine brains and spinal cords to prevent them from reaching consumers, they said.