15 June, 2005 17:29 GMT
Japan currently tests all its cattle for the disease before slaughter, and had earlier demanded that the United States adopt a similar system before imports could resume.
Japan's Agriculture Minister Yoshinobu Shimamura called his US counterpart late Wednesday to give him an update on Tokyo's debate over whether to end a 17-month ban on American beef imports, an official said.
Washington has intensified pressure on Tokyo to end the US beef ban, which Japan has kept since December 2003. The ban in the most lucrative market for US beef started in December 2003, after the United States discovered its first case of mad cow disease.
Mad Cow Dispute
Shimamura told US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns about the Japanese Food Safety Commission's recommendation last month that the government waive mad cow disease tests for domestic cattle under 21 months old, considered less likely to be infected, said ministry official Hirofumi Kugita.
That recommendation marked a major step toward resuming imports of beef from the United States, though no time frame has been given for the resumption of trade.
"Shimamura was only conveying information that has already been made public before," Kugita said, adding that the talks also covered issues related to the World Trade Organization, the international body that makes the rules for commerce. He declined to elaborate.
Tokyo said Tuesday that negotiations with Washington over the mad cow dispute won't be set back by a suspected second US case of the illness discovered last week. Japanese media reports said the two officials likely discussed that on Wednesday.
Blanket Testing
The
US Agriculture Department said last Friday it will seek further testing of a tissue sample from a "downer" cow -- one unable to walk -- after receiving conflicting results on tests of it for mad cow disease.
Japan currently tests all its cattle for the disease before slaughter, and had earlier demanded that the United States adopt a similar system before imports could resume. Japanese consumer groups want the government to keep out US beef until Washington agrees to blanket testing.
Washington has rejected that demand as a waste of resources and one not based on scientific data.
Mad cow disease is also called bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. Eating infected beef is thought to cause variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder that has killed more than 150 people, mostly in Britain in the 1990s.
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