Less than six weeks after lifting a two-year ban on U.S. beef imports, the Japanese government was forced to impose it again last week. The action followed the discovery of prohibited material in a shipment from a New York meatpacker in violation of safety rules aimed at preventing the spread of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease.
It appears that the U.S. government failed to properly oversee the safety regime for exporting beef to Japan, the biggest overseas market for U.S. beef. For its part, the Japanese government was no doubt mindful of its assurance to Japanese consumers that exporters on the U.S. side would fulfill their duty -- the precondition for lifting the ban in the first place.
Japan lifted the ban on U.S. and Canadian beef imports on Dec. 12 following a final report by the BSE panel of the Cabinet Office's Food Safety Commission. The report said the difference in the risk of human BSE infection between North American beef and domestic beef will be extremely small if two conditions are met: Cattle slaughtered for beef export to Japan are less than 21 months old and special-risk materials (SRM) such as brains and spinal cords, in which prions, the infectious agents of BSE, are more likely to exist, are removed.