Taiwan's move to import U.S. beef parts criticized

Taiwan's Consumers' Foundation on Friday described a plan to allow imports of several kinds of U.S. beef product as "very disturbing".

Taiwan's agricultural authority plans to allow imports of bone marrow, blood vessels, head meat, cheek meat, oesophagus and tallow from cattle under 30 months old from the United States and Canada. The United States is still affected by bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE).

The foundation was quoted in Taiwan media as saying that it is worried that people consuming beef, milk and dairy made from infected beef will be at a higher risk of being infected with the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the fatal neurological disease that is believed to be caused by consuming BSE-infected cow products.

According to Taiwan's food safety regulations, the import of internal cow organs from countries that have reported cases of mad cow diseases over the past decade is prohibited, but the agricultural authority argues the six categories are not internal organs. Endi