Japanese Panel to Debate Beef Test

The Japanese Food Safety Commission said its subcommittee on mad cow disease would meet Friday to discuss whether to approve the government’s policy of excluding cattle younger than 21 months from mad cow testing.

Finalizing the policy based on scientific evidence is a crucial step toward ending a Japanese ban on U.S. beef imports implemented after the United States discovered its first case of mad cow disease in December 2003.

Washington has expressed frustration with Japan’s slow pace in carrying out an October agreement to restart imports, and the meeting comes after President Bush asked Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Wednesday to lift the ban.

Before the ban, Japan was the top overseas customer for American beef, buying $1.4 billion worth in 2003.

In October, the two countries agreed to resume shipments of beef from animals 20 months old or younger, which are considered at low risk of contracting the disease.

But the process has stalled as the two sides debate how to accurately tell the age of beef. Japan’s youngest case of the brain-wasting disease, formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, was in a 21-month-old animal.

When Bush asked Koizumi to lift the ban, the prime minister was noncommittal about when this could occur, U.S. and Japanese officials said.

The Food Safety Commission, composed of scientists and working-level officials from the farm and health ministries, is responsible for discussing policy changes.

Japanese officials have said that public safety is key and that scientific evidence is vital for Tokyo to resume U.S. beef imports.

Japan began testing all its cattle for mad cow disease in October 2001 after it discovered a domestic case of the disease.

The commission’s last meeting, Feb. 24, made no significant progress.