U.S. to answer questions on beef
Untitled
Japanese questions unanswered by 'Insufficient' report
LONDON (AP)--The U.S. will answer lingering Japanese questions about a faulty cattle parts shipment this week and hopes that will permit beef trade between the countries to resume soon, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said March 11.
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns met March 10 with his Japanese counterpart, Shoichi Nakagawa, and the two had a "candid discussion" about Washington's investigation into a January shipment of prohibited veal cuts, said USDA spokeswoman Terri Teuber.
Japan closed its doors to American beef in reaction to the shipment from Brooklyn-based Atlantic Veal & Lamb, which contained banned backbones. The cattle parts are considered at risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy and prohibited under a December pact that allowed the easing of Japan's two-year ban on beef imports from the United States.
Johanns relayed to Nakagawa some of the frustration in Washington with the ban, but "he's hopeful that within a reasonable time frame we will be able to resume beef trade," Teuber said.
U.S. officials delivered a 475-page report to Tokyo in February to explain why Atlantic Veal & Lamb sent the shipment and to lay out the several steps the U.S. has taken to prevent future mistakes.
Washington concluded in the report that the mistake was an isolated error and didn't indicate deep flaws in the U.S. food safety system, but Nakagawa said the report was insufficient and raised a lot of questions. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi suggested a quick resumption of imports was unlikely.
Earlier last week, Tokyo said it had delivered questions asking how the export mishap occurred, given that an inspection system was already in place to monitor the shipments.
The U.S. is "in the process of completing the responses, which we anticipate submitting to Japan next week," Johanns said in a statement released March 10.
The veal mishap deepened Japanese suspicions about the safety of U.S. beef. Tokyo first closed its markets to imports in December 2003 after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in a U.S. herd.
Date: 3/23/06
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