Japan Lifts Ban on US Beef

From the San Francisco Chronicle - Beef sales back in the saddle U.S. to ship again to Japan after mad cow scare

On Wednesday, the Harris Ranch Beef Co. will spend the extra money it will take to send 10,000 pounds of beef to Japan via air rather than ship, in hopes of being the first producer to return to a market that was slammed shut nearly two years ago. In December 2003, a dairy cow at a ranch in Washington state was found to have mad cow disease. Japan, the largest foreign consumer of U.S. beef, quickly stopped buying it, followed by many other importing nations. Suddenly, the Japanese market for U.S. beef, valued at $1.4 billion annually, evaporated.