US assures safety of its beef despite mad cow cases

WASHINGTON - The United States reached out to its major trading partners, including Japan and South Korea, to assure them that US beef was safe despite the discovery of a second US case of mad cow disease.

The US Agriculture Department on Friday confirmed the new case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the first in an adult beef cow apparently born in the United States.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns sought to calm consumer concerns about the US beef supply, saying the infected animal did not enter the human food or animal feed supplies.

"Let me just reassure people there is nothing to worry about relative to BSE in beef," Johanns said in an interview on the CBS Early Show television programme.

"Our safeguards worked to keep the animal away from the food supply."

Despite Johanns' efforts, Taiwan reinstated its ban on American beef imports.

"We anticipated this from them," USDA spokesman Ed Loyd said.

"We are going to work with them to expeditiously reopen the market to US beef."

Taiwan's Executive Yuan, or cabinet, said the ban would take effect immediately and only be lifted if subsequent tests showed different results for the infected cow.

Taiwan, previously the sixth-largest US beef buyer, lifted a 16-month US beef ban in April, imposed after the discovery of the first US case of mad cow disease in a Washington state dairy cow. That cow was born in Canada.

The USDA said US embassies and agriculture attaches were briefed on the new mad cow case and would relay that information to foreign governments.

The USDA does not believe the new case will affect efforts to resume beef trade with Japan and South Korea, the top two Asian markets for US beef. Canada and Mexico are also major importers of US beef.

USDA scientists in Ames, Iowa, are conducting DNA testing on the beef cow to determine when and where it was born. Johanns said the animal was at least 8 years old.

Published reports have said the cow was slaughtered in Texas, the nation's biggest cattle state.

The USDA said it would not have any new information on the infected cow until at least Monday.

"This was an animal where it was very difficult to find the BSE," Johanns said.

"There has been a number of tests done, some positive, some negative."

USDA officials said the new BSE case was a different strain from the first US case and the outbreak that occurred in Britain in the 1980s. Some experts had speculated that the conflicting test results were due to an unusual type of BSE.

- REUTERS