The United States banned all Japanese cattle and beef imports, including specialty meats like tender Kobe steaks, following reports of a suspected case of mad cow disease, the US Department of Agriculture said on September 18.

Last week, Japan said a 5-year-old dairy cow had tested positive for mad cow disease on a farm in the Chiba area near Tokyo -- the first suspected case in Asia. Japanese officials have submitted samples to international laboratories to confirm their findings.

The new US import restrictions apply to all Japanese beef products arriving in American ports on or after September 10.

"This action is necessary in order to continue to safeguard American agriculture against this deadly neurological disease of bovine animals," USDA said in a statement.

The USDA said it was investigating the types of beef products and amount the United States imported from Japan in the past. Japan has shipped minuscule amounts of specialty beef products, like Kobe beef, into the United States in the last decade.

The USDA has been prohibiting most beef products from Japan for more than a year because of separate concerns about foot-and-mouth disease.

The department's latest actions extend this ban to cover all Japanese processed beef products since scientists believe bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, can spread even after cooking and processing in high temperatures.

The human version of the brain-wasting disease, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which is transmitted by infected meat and bone meal, is believed to have killed around 100 people in Europe.

Scientists believe mad cow disease spreads among cattle when the spinal cord and brains of diseased livestock are ground up for use in animal feed. The United States has banned such livestock feed since 1997.

Minuscule Amount

Before the foot-and-mouth ban, Japan shipped a small amount of beef to the United States, less than 30 tonnes annually since 1992, according to the USDA.

No case of mad cow disease has been found in the United States.

Ed Curlette, spokesman for USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, said the majority of Japanese beef imports shipped to the United States before March of last year were fine cuts of a type of meat known as Kobe beef. The high quality beef, popular in fine restaurants for its tenderness and flavor, comes from cattle raised in Kobe, Japan.

Curlette said 90% of the boneless specialty meat came from cattle muscles, not from body parts susceptible to mad cow disease like the animal's brain or spinal cord.

"We are still gathering information on what other products may have come in," Curlette said. "But there is very little risk with muscle meat."

European Union officials gave Japan a high risk rating earlier this year because it imported live cattle as well as suspicious bone meal from Britain, where mad cow disease was first discovered.

"USDA probably needs to take a closer look at other countries that imported these products," said Gary Weber, the beef group's director for regulatory affairs.

Harvard University is expected to issue in the next few weeks a much delayed assessment of the effectiveness of federal animal disease prevention programs and the likelihood mad cow disease could spread to the United States.

Reuters Washington, September 18, 2001