Taiwan will resume conditional US beef imports today after a 16-month-long ban prompted by a lone case of mad cow disease in Washington State in 2003, the Department of Health announced yesterday.
Taiwan, once the sixth-largest buyer of US beef, will start importing boneless meat cut from cattle younger than 30 months. The decision was made after the health authority sent a panel of experts to inspect and evaluate the safety measures in US slaughterhouses.
"Our team is satisfied with the US Department of Agriculture's animal testing procedures and tight control on feeding and slaughtering. We believe that US boneless beef is safe to eat," said Chen Lu-hung (陳陸宏), director of Bureau of Food Safety at the Department of Health.
After the discovery of the brain-wasting disease in a dairy adult cow in Washington State in December 2003, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea stopped buying American beef.
According to Chen, the single US case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) was actually imported from Canada. Once a second case of BSE is uncovered in the US, Taiwan would immediately stop importing US beef to ensure food safety. Importing only boneless cuts from young cattle, Chen noted, the risk of consuming BSE-tainted meat is minimal. BSE is a slowly progressive, degenerative, fatal disease affecting the central nervous system of adult cattle.
In cattle with BSE, a special infectious type of protein is found in the small intestines, tonsils and central nervous tissues such as the brain and spinal cord.
The department said that they have no plans to lift the ban on cattle organs or beef products from adult cattle. Also, all the US beef must come from slaughter and packing houses registered with the Department of Health and approved by the US' Department of Agriculture (USDA). The meat also must be certified by the USDA.
"We are confident that the system of multiple firewalls can effectively prevent BSE-contaminated beef from entering the food supply chain here," said Chen.
The much-feared mad cow disease attracted wide attention because people can contract the disease's fatal variant by consuming BSE-affected beef products.
Taiwan imported 19,225 tons of American beef in 2003, amounting to sales worth US$76.5 million. Australia and New Zealand took over Taiwan's beef import market after the ban against the US, which took up a fifth of Taiwan's beef import market before the mad cow case.
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