Gov't mulls disposal of cow's susceptible organs

Japan Policy & Politics, Sept 24, 2001

TOKYO, Sept. 21 Kyodo

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry is considering requiring dairy farmers to dispose of cow organs most susceptible to mad cow disease before distribution to the market in a bid to prevent further infections, ministry sources said Friday.

Cows' brains, spinal cords and small intestines are earmarked for disposal under the measure, because they are considered to put humans at a high risk of contracting the disease if consumed, the sources said.

The ministry currently has no intention to implement the measure because only one suspected case of mad cow disease, involving a diary cow, has been discovered in Japan.

However, a ministry official said, ''If more cows (suspected for the infection) are discovered from now, we have to draw up a concrete measure.''

According to the sources, the ministry's plan requires meat processing sites to dispose of designated cow organs by burning and for meat dealers and restaurant managers to follow guidelines in accordance with relevant laws such as the Food Sanitation Law.

The ministry will specify parts to be disposed of as well as how to compensate dairy farmers.

The Holstein dairy cow suspected of being infected with mad cow disease was discovered at a farm in Chiba Prefecture near Tokyo earlier this month.

The ministry plans to conduct intensive examinations on some one million cows aged 30 months or older from late October.

Mad cow disease was first confirmed in Britain in 1986. It is thought to cause the fatal human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD).

In Britain, the number of cows infected with the disease totaled about 180,000 and about 100 people have been infected with the variant CJD via contaminated beef.

The ministry is also considering strengthening ways of detecting symptoms of CJD in humans, noting that the link between mad cow disease and its human variant cannot be ignored, the sources said.

There is no report of human patient of the variant CJD in Japan.