A food safety panel on Monday adopted a draft report that, once finalized, will pave the way to ending the two-year-old ban on imports of U.S. and Canadian beef.
The government panel said in the report that it is unclear whether the U.S. will be able to take adequate measures to minimize the risk of mad cow disease, whose discovery in the U.S. triggered the ban.
"It is difficult for us to assess the risk of BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) in the U.S. and Canada, given the numerous unclear points in the quality and quantity of data, and given the fact that we must assume strict adherence to (preventive) measures," says the report compiled by the Food Safety Commission's panel on mad cow disease.