The brain-wasting bovine disease, which has ravaged herds in Europe and is linked to the fatal human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is believed to have spread through cattle feed made with meat-and-bone meal or MBM from infected animals.
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Japan, which bought more than US $ 1 billion of U . S . beef last year, was one of more than two dozen nations that suspended imports after a cow in Washington state tested positive for the brain-wasting bovine disease last week.
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The Japanese minister criticized last month's decision by the U . S . Agricultural Department to give up efforts to track all 80 cows that entered the United States from a Canadian farm with a single Holstein that tested positive for the bovine disease in Washington state in December.
