Taiwan votes yes to U.S. beef, but..........

[Manitoba_Rancher]

Taiwan votes yes to U.S. beef, but its food safety bureau doesn't


Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, similar to the U.S. Congress, passed a resolution Thursday to allow the importation of U.S. beef on a conditional basis. The country's Department of Health's Bureau of Food Safety blasted the vote, saying that only Bureau of Food Safety can make that decision.

Taiwan had briefly lifted its ban on U.S. beef in April 2005, but reimposed it when a second case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was discovered in the United States in June.

Under the Legislative Yuan bill, imports could resume if Taiwan develops a consumer-protection plan, the United States builds a "beef resume" (Animal ID) system, and food inspectors from Taiwan are posted in the United States to ensure proper procedures are met and that no new BSE cases have appeared.

 

[PORKER]

They won't unless they get Residue & Microbial Testing
In order to export to the United States, a foreign country must have a residue control program with standards equivalent to U.S. standards. The same goes for the US shipping to Taiwan . Statutes require that foreign residue control programs include: random sampling of animals at slaughter, the use of approved sampling and analytical methods, testing of appropriate target tissues for specific compounds, and testing for compounds identified by the USDA or the country-of-origin as potential contaminants.

FSIS randomly samples meat, poultry, and egg products for violative chemical residues under the National Residue Program. The compounds included in the import residue plan reflect the testing done in the U.S. domestic residue program. FSIS can initiate a special sampling plan when there is a need to monitor a country for residues of a specific compound, based on detection of violative residues at U.S. port-of-entry or other information concerning risk to human health. Decisions about product acceptability are based on U.S. tolerances or action levels.