TOKYO (AFP) — Japan suspended beef imports Wednesday from a US meatpacking plant that shipped risky cuts in violation of a bilateral accord aimed at limiting the threat of mad cow disease.
A pack of beef, imported for the major Japanese restaurant chain Yoshinoya from the Californian plant of National Beef, contained spinal tissue, the agriculture ministry said.
Japan in July 2006 agreed to resume US beef imports on condition the cattle were not more than 20 months old at the time of slaughter, with brains, spinal cords and other risky parts removed.
The illegal shipment was among 700 packs or 17 tonnes of beef imported through Japanese trading company Itochu last August, the ministry said in a statement.
The spinal tissue was discovered on Tuesday at a Yoshinoya meat processing plant in Tokyo's suburbs.
"The beef in question has not been sent to the market," said Takashi Himeda, an official in charge of food safety at the ministry.
It was the first time that a risky cut has been found in a US beef shipment since Japan resumed imports, he added.
Imports from the National Beef plant will be suspended until Tokyo receives from the US administration a "report on the result of a detailed investigation" into the case, the statement said.
Japan, formerly the biggest overseas market for US beef, first banned imports in December 2003 after a cow infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the brain-wasting condition commonly known as mad cow disease, was discovered in the US state of Washington.
Under US pressure with the threat of trade sanctions, Japan lifted the embargo in December 2005 but slapped it back on a month later after a shipment included a risky part.
Japan has rejected US calls to increase the age limit applied to slaughtered cattle as it believes younger cattle are less likely to have accumulated infectious proteins that could cause BSE.
US President George W. Bush told Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda in Washington last November to "fully open" the Japanese market to US beef and beef products.
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