beef

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

U.S. meat packers have repeatedly failed to remove risky parts

Major U.S. meat packers certified by the U.S. government for exporting beef to Japan have repeatedly failed to remove high-BSE risk parts from cattle.

Japanese Communist Party representative Kami Tomoko revealed this at the March 8 House of Councilors Budget Committee meeting. Pointing out that the presence of U.S. beef with high risk material found at Narita Airport on January 20 is "not exceptional," Kami urged the Koizumi government to demand that the U.S. implement the same BSE inspection system as that of Japan.

Kami showed a U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) "noncompliance record" published in August 2005 that she obtained in her U.S. investigation tour in February. It listed 1,316 "noncompliance" cases from January 2004, when the U.S. government had started to require beef processors to remove risky parts, to May 2005.

According to the FSIS report, two U.S. meat processing facilities authorized to process beef for Japan, Cargill Meat Solutions in Schuyler, Nebraska, and Nebraska Beef in Omaha, Nebraska, each failed six times to remove risky parts from cattle.

The report stated that Nebraska Beef's "previous preventative and corrective measures were not properly implemented, ineffective and or inadequate to prevent a reoccurrence of the noncompliance."

Health Minister Kawasaki Jiro and Agriculture Minister Nakagawa Shoichi admitted that the government only examined a summary of the FSIS report before it decided to lift the ban on U.S. beef imports in December 2005.
- Akahata, March 9, 2006