January 6, 2004 Jiji Press Ticker Service

The United States in late December announced it would stop shipments of cows that are unable to walk, but this is not as effective as all-out mad cow tests in preventing meat of infected animals from being distributed, he told a press conference.

Watanabe also said Japan will send a team comprising experts from his ministry, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare and the Cabinet Office's Food Security Commission to the United States later this week.

The team will gather information on how the brain-wasting disease, formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, appeared in the United States and on the U.S. government's measures to prevent the disease from spreading, Watanabe said.

Japan suspended U.S. beef imports late last month, immediately after the discovery of the first case of BSE in the United States.