000303 Norway Bans Danish Meat

Oslo, Norway - Norway banned most Danish meat imports and stepped up customs controls, two days after neighboring Denmark reported a case of mad cow disease.

Norway joined the three Baltic countries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in barring imports of Danish beef. Major Swedish supermarkets began voluntarily pulling Danish meat products from their shelves.

Denmark recalled all meat products that could be contaminated by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, after finding the illness in a Danish-born cow.

Norway and the other nations want products stopped because contaminated meat has been linked to a deadly human brain ailment, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

The Norwegian Food Control Authority said it was banning many types of high- risk Danish fresh meat, including beef, sheep and goat products that contain bones and other organs that could harbor the disease.

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