001256 Japan May Ban European Beef Imports

Tokyo - Reacting to the mad cow panic gripping Europe, Japan said it may ban the import of beef and beef products from the European Union as a precaution against the brain-wasting infection.

The ban, proposed by a panel of experts, would take effect in January and apply to beef, food made from processed beef and bull sperm, which is used for breeding, Agriculture Ministry official Masanori Hayashi said. The ministry will consider the panel's recommendation and make a final decision by the end of the month.

Traditionally a fish-eating nation, Japan has developed a strong affinity for beef over the past few decades. Last year it imported some 642 tons of beef from European Union nations, along with nearly 1,500 tons of cow organs and over 55,000 samples of sperm.

Japan has gradually widened the scope of its European beef bans to include medicine and cosmetics made from animals in nearly 30 countries and animal intestines for making sausages.

It recently outlawed the import of animal feed made from European cow bones and beef, beginning Jan. 1.

Mad cow disease - formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE - is thought to spread to humans as the brain-wasting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. BSE wasn't identified until 1986, but by the mid-1990s, Britain was seeing tens of thousands of cases a year.

The European Union banned imports of British beef and feed in 1996, and millions of British cows were incinerated. But the disease later appeared on the European continent and has reappeared in recent months in Germany after an increase in France.

Widespread fear has yet to hit the Japanese public, since the nation has no reported cases of mad cow disease. But restaurants say they are taking action.

“It's definitely a concern,” said Chikara Hasegawa, an employee at Hanamasa, a Tokyo restaurant specializing in a boiled beef dish called “shabu shabu.”

“Ever since this became an issue a few years ago, the company decided not to use European beef. We get all our beef from America now,” Hasegawa said.

Other Asia-Pacific nations are also taking precautionary measures.

Australia announced in September that it would ban blood donations from people who may have been exposed to the disease while living in Britain.

Singapore banned beef imports from Britain, France, Ireland, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium between 1996 and 1997. It added Germany and Denmark to that list in March.

Hong Kong has not banned European beef, but on Wednesday the government issued a statement saying it had “imposed additional sanitation requirements on beef products imported from European Union countries that have reported cases of mad cow disease.”

Still, recent reports of new cases in countries such as Germany have yet to scare Hong Kong beef-eaters away from their steaks, according to one restaurant manager.

“Fewer people ate steaks one to two years ago when the mad cow disease was rampant in other countries,” said Chris Chow of Plume, an upscale eatery. “The business is doing fine at the moment.”

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