Japan Testing U.S. Beef

Japan's agriculture minister recommended a total halt to American beef imports if officials confirm a recent U.S. meat shipment contained material considered at risk for mad cow disease, a ministry spokesman said.

The threat to close the doors to U.S. beef came just a month after Japan partially lifted a two-year-old ban on American imports. That ban was imposed in 2003 following the discovery of mad cow disease in the U.S. herd.

Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa made the recommendation in a report sent to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Agriculture Ministry spokesman Hiromasa Sakuma said.

The report was prompted by the possibility that material from cattle backbone was included in beef imported from the U.S. The suspicious material was found by inspectors at the Narita international airport outside Tokyo.

"If it is true, then this goes against the terms of the agreement," Nakagawa told reporters. "A thorough investigation needs to be conducted."

The deal that allowed the resumption of U.S. imports was limited to meat from cows aged 20 months or younger. The agreement excluded spines, brains, bone marrow and other parts of the cow thought to be at particularly high risk of containing mad cow disease.

U.S. lawmakers have been pressing Japan to allow beef from cattle that has been slaughtered at up to 30 months of age, as called for under international animal health guidelines.

But Nakagawa rejected those demands Wednesday, saying Japan could not accept such a change to the terms of the agreement.

Before the ban, Japan was the most lucrative overseas market for American beef, buying some US$1.4 billion worth in 2003.

Despite its return to local supermarket shelves and restaurant menus, U.S. beef still faces an uphill struggle in Japan, where consumers are particularly sensitive to safety concerns.

Mad cow disease is the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, a degenerative nerve disease in cattle that is linked to a rare but fatal nerve disorder in humans, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.