Our cattle realize the consequences of misbehaving.
Posted on 06/02/2005 3:55:11 PM PDT by nickcarraway
TOKYO (AP) - A cow in northern Japan is suspected of being the country's 19th case of mad cow disease, an official said Wednesday.
Preliminary tests on the animal at a slaughterhouse in Hokkaido prefecture were positive, and authorities sent samples to two laboratories in the prefecture for more precise tests, a Hokkaido prefectural official said on condition of anonymity. He declined to elaborate. Kyodo News agency said final test results could be announced by Saturday.
Japan has found 18 animals infected with the fatal illness - known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE - since the first case was detected in 2001. Since then, Tokyo has checked every slaughtered cow before it enters the food supply since 2001, after its first discovery of mad cow disease.
In February, Japan confirmed its first human case of mad cow disease following the death of a man with symptoms of the illness. Japanese health authorities have said it was likely the man contracted the disease while living for a month in Britain - where mad cow first surfaced - in 1989.
Japan banned U.S. beef imports after the first case of mad cow was confirmed in Washington state last December.
Amid pressure from Washington, a Japanese government panel earlier this month took a step toward partially lifting a ban on U.S. beef imports, but the decision still has to be approved by the government.
Eating beef from an infected cattle is thought to cause the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
There's nothing wrong with US beef!!
19th case of Mad Cow Disease? Where have they been importing the diseased cows from?
I suspect they are home grown. Of course, they claim that the primary reason the US has not reported many cases is that it does not test every animal.
Japan tests EVERY cow, We don't. Because BSE occurs naturaly, why AREN'T we finding it? We should be.
About 1 in a million get BSE, we should be finding about 14 cows a year with BSE.
We only test about 11,000.
How do they raise cattle in Japan? Isn't cattle raising land intensive? And land is one thing Japan is short on.
Let us hope they are not among the famous (and extremely expensive) Kobe beef cows.
Anyone for a little Kobe Beef?
Didn't we (USA) make it illegal to test and then market "BSE Safe" beef?
Welcome to Free Republic.
"There's nothing wrong with US beef!!"
Correct answer!!!
Welcome to FR!
Much of the domestic beef is raised in the North Eastern part of Japan - Iwate prefecture, and Hokkaido. Land is expensive so that makes the beef expensive as well. The production numbers are also small compared to bigger countries which is why Japan imports beef from Australia, New Zealand, and (until this suspension) the USA - about $1.7 billion worth.
Our cattle realize the consequences of misbehaving.
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