The government on Sept. 11 began probing the use of animal-based feed at a farm in Shiroi, Chiba Prefecture, where the nation's first suspected case of mad cow disease has been found.
Authorities will examine the types and amount of meat-and-bone meal used at the farm, as well as when it was used, to clarify how the cow was infected.
Farm ministerTsutomu Takebe told a news conference that the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry may have been lax in its efforts to prevent an outbreak of the disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
According to experts, about 300 tons of meat-and-bone meal were imported to Japan from Britain before 1996, when Britain restricted exports of the feed due to fears of mad cow disease.
The owner of the cow told reporters that it was among five he purchased around May 1998 from a group of animals a broker obtained in Hokkaido
It was also learned that the Hokkaido farm had shipped other cows to farmers in Honshu
狂牛病、日本初の感染例か?
千葉県で狂牛病の疑いがある牛が見つかった。政府はその農場で使っていた動物性飼料について調べている。
Shukan ST: Sept. 21, 2001
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