Countries Start To Ban US Beef Due To Mad Cow Disease: Aren't You Glad You Don't Eat Meat?

The bans came within hours of the detection of BSE in a single cow in the north-western state of Washington.

The move was led by Japan, which bought $800m of US beef last year - one-third of US exports of the meat.

Russia, Ukraine, Mexico and a number of Asian counties from Singapore to South Korea have also barred imports.

Mainland China is monitoring the situation.

Shares in hamburger giant McDonald's Corp fell by about 5% on the New York stock exchange, although the company said its supply chain was not linked to the suspected "mad cow" disease case.

Details of the case were revealed by US Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, who said a Holstein cow had tested positive on 9 December - but she insisted the country's beef was safe.

Tissue samples from the suspected cow are being studied in the UK, which suffered a devastating outbreak of mad cow disease in the mid-1990s.

The results will be known in a few days' time.

The list of countries imposing bans or temporary suspensions of beef imports has steadily grown.

Quarantine

BBC business correspondent Mark Gregory says the loss of Asian markets in particular is a huge blow to the US beef industry, which is worth $38bn a year.

Of the five top importers of US beef, only Canada has held off imposing some kind of restriction.

Our reporter says that a collapse of US domestic demand for beef would be the industry's ultimate nightmare, since 90% of US beef is consumed at home.

He adds that if American consumers panicked and stopped eating beef, 200,000 jobs could be at risk.

BSE has been linked to new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), a human brain-wasting disease.

The farm near Yakima, Washington, where the cow was found, has been quarantined.

"We remain confident in the safety of our food supply," Ms Veneman told reporters - adding that she planned to serve beef on Christmas Day.

The dairy cow had been sick or injured and was never destined for the public food supply, Ms Veneman said.

Canadian caution

Canada, the third biggest foreign market for US beef, said it would wait for confirmation on the test results before taking any action.

In August, the US eased a ban on Canadian beef imports imposed in May after a single case of the disease was found at a farm in Alberta. The two cases do not appear to be connected.

A private study released in November estimated that Canada's beef industry lost $2.5bn (C$3.3bn) in the six months after its mad cow case was discovered.

First diagnosed in Britain in 1986, BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) affected 178,000 British cattle and resulted in the eventual destruction of 3.7 million animals.

It cost British farming billions of dollars as countries around the world banned British beef.

Shares of restaurant stocks are expected to be hit by the mad cow announcement.

Correspondents say the US beef business has been booming - partly due to the popularity of the protein-rich Atkins diet.

The European Union said it was keeping a close eye on the situation, but it has anyway banned most US beef for many years because of growth hormones in the meat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3345929.stm