Congressmen talk sanctions over Japan's refusal to buy beef / LJWorld.com

Archive for Thursday, March 16, 2006

March 16, 2006

Last week's discovery of a new case of mad cow disease in Alabama isn't slowing Kansas officials in their quest to reopen Japanese markets to American beef.

"Catching this case in Alabama should solidify with the Japanese that our system is working in this country," Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., said Wednesday during a conference call with the Kansas media. "The Japanese need to open the market - it's been closed too long."

If not, Brownback said, America might impose an "economic cost" on Japan.

The beef industry is critical to the state economy, generating more than $5 billion in revenue. Before America's first outbreak of mad cow disease in 2003, Japan purchased nearly $1.4 billion worth of U.S. beef a year.

"This is a huge issue in our state," said Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., who is a member of the House Agriculture Committee.

After two years of being closed to American beef, Japanese markets briefly reopened late last year after Moran and Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., introduced bills to levy economic sanctions. But the Japanese closed their markets again in January when inspectors found part of a backbone - forbidden under beef trade rules - in a shipment of veal.

Brownback and Moran met with Japanese Ambassador Ryozo Kato in recent weeks to make the case for loosening restrictions. Their efforts were complicated by the newest mad cow case, the country's third.

But Roberts, who is on the Senate Agriculture Committee, said the discovery is proof that the American system works to catch the disease before it enters the food supply.

"When we started testing, we anticipated finding positive cases of" mad cow, Roberts said. "The important thing is that these animals are kept out of the food supply and the proper tools and methods of response are in place to ensure animal and human health."

Roberts added that Japan has had more than 20 cases of mad cow disease.

That's why Moran believes the Japanese position is more about politics than food fears.

"They've always been reluctant to open their market," he said. "I don't think this is a food-safety issue in Japan."

And like Brownback, Moran indicated he might soon be ready to pursue sanctions against Japan. A spokesman for Roberts said he was considering "all legislative options."

"I think that certainly is a possibility," Moran said. "It's hard to say we're patient, because patience ran out a long time ago."

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16 March 2006
at 12:15 p.m.

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gccs14r (Anonymous) says…

No one should be buying U.S. beef until every animal is tested by an independent entity not tied to either the industry or government. I've seen USDA work up close and personal and wouldn't trust them to certify a paperclip.
16 March 2006
at 4:08 p.m.

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wlpywd (Anonymous) says…

This is insane. Testing each cow, and i mean every cow, would add 6-10 cents per pound of beef sold. Testing could be be done for every cow for exporting. The testing costs used to go right back into the US economy. All japanese tests were sold by, and processed by Bio-Rad Laboratories in California and Abbott Laboratories in Chicago. The USDA's slow adoption of technology and control on sales of the tests led to the Japanese setting up their own laboratories. The nature of Prions also does not point to a BSE-free cattle under 24 months, but a lack of symptoms. A replicating folded protien that is present can be passed to humans from infected meat, not just ones that show signs. Its not like a virus that could posslibly, however improbable, need 2 years to mature and grow into something dangerous. And this is not like a Cold Virus where a random sampling will give us a decent picture of how many cows are infected; this is a fatal disease where 1 undetected cow can feed hundreds of people. That is a scarey thought. No one would suggest that an HIV infected person call a random sampling of their past sexual partners to get an idea of how many people might have contracted it—and experts recommend an HIV test for each sexually-active person in your life if you are not in a monogamous relationship anyway. All women over a certain age are suggested they get screened for breast cancer, not a random sampling. Basic check-ups are also recomended. BSE is the same way, its not something that we should want to know how many cows may have it, we should want to know if each and every cow is infected or not before it enters the food chain. if our random testing of a sampling of cattle has shown us 3 that have BSE, then how many overall have it? its not zero. If we are testing 1% of our 35 million slaughtered cattle each year, then +/- 300 cattle have entered our food supply with BSE. This scares me not so much from us not knowing what is entering the market or not, but moreso from the government actually refusing to let sellers who want to test all the cows they have test them. If a few of us consumers, and all our foreign trade partners, only want to buy meat that has been tested, why shouldn't those companies get our business? if the large corporate farms who donate to the congressmen to not allow that because their business may be harmed if people find out Tyson Cows have a higher rate of BSE, then this is a truely scarey time in US Food Safety.
16 March 2006
at 6:10 p.m.

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srj (Anonymous) says…

Japan has the right not to buy our stuff. And if memory serves me right, didn't the goverment have to take more control over meat inspections becuase the beef makers where not doing enough?