The trustworthiness of the Food Safety Commission appears to be in jeopardy. Half of the 12-member panel under the commission that was tasked with assessing the safety of North American beef resigned as of March 31. The six who quit were regarded by consumer groups as being cautious about the idea of resuming beef imports from the United States and Canada. Six new members were appointed as of April 1. A full explanation about what led to their resignation should be the first step to regaining trust in the commission and the panel.
In May 2003, a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), popularly known as mad cow disease, was found in Canada, triggering a ban on beef imports from Canada. The commission was established as an independent body under the Cabinet Office in July that year in response to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry's failure to prevent the emergence of BSE in Japan due to its lax approach to the use of powdered meat and bone as cattle feed. The 12-member experts panel on prions was set up in August the same year. Prions are abnormal protein believed to cause BSE.
In December 2003, BSE was found in a U.S. cow that had been born in Canada, leading to a ban on beef imports from the U.S. The panel started comparing the risk from eating North American beef with the risk from eating Japanese beef in May 2005. The government then lifted the ban on imports of U.S. and Canadian beef on Dec. 12 on the basis of the final report of the prions panel that had been issued four days before. On Jan. 20, 2006, however, the government was forced to re-impose the ban on imports of U.S. beef because spinal-column bone, which is classified as a special-risk material, was found in veal shipped from a meatpacker in Brooklyn, New York.