World

Japan Jumps On Anti-Mad Cow Wagon

December 12, 2000 / 8:02 AM EST / CBS/AP

In a preemptive step against mad cow disease, Japan on Tuesday banned use of animals as material for making medicines and cosmetics from 28 countries around the world.

Tokyo also banned the import of intestines of animals for making sausages from some countries in which animals are suspected of being infected with the disease.

The disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, is thought to spread to humans as the brain-wasting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Mad cow disease was first reported in Britain four years ago and then in wider swathes of the European continent. The disease reappeared in recent months in Germany after an increase in France. There have been no reports of mad cow disease in Japan.

Since 1996, Japan has banned the use of cattle from Britain for producing pharmaceutical products. Twenty-eight nations were added in the latest move.

"We are taking new regulations as a preemptive measure," said Daisaku Sato, an official of the pharmaceutical and medical safety bureau with the Ministry of Health and Welfare.

Under the new rule, makers of medical products, medical supplies, and cosmetics makers in Japan, are banned from using ruminants such as sheep, goat and pig carcasses from the nations, mostly from Europe, Sato said.

Besides Britain, the nations include France, Swizerland, Ireland, Oman, Porgual, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Yugoslavia and Germany.

The use of animal organs including eyes and intestines that are deemed a high risk of being inflicted with mad cow disease will also not be permitted, he said.

Also on Tuesday, the Health Ministry instructed local governments (states) and makers of animal products to check records on originating countries of products in store, the source of their manufacturing and processing methods within a month.

So far, two people in France and 80 in Britain have died from the disease; 89 people across the 15-nation European Union have been infected.