U.S. Safeguards for BSE and U. S. Beef Import Requirements to Korea

This article evaluates the U.S. safeguards for BSE which are critical in beef trade, comparing it with safeguards in the Import Health Requirements (the IHRs) of 2008 for U.S. Beef and Beef Products to Korea. Among various U.S. safeguards for BSE, it examines principally feed ban, surveillance program, designation of special risk materials(SRMs), restriction for downer cattle, and measures for tallow. It argues that in consideration of BSE’s presence even though the number of BSE occurrence has decreased rapidly, U.S. safeguards for BSE cannot be said to be sufficient from the prospective of human health. Especially the numbers of surveillance program in U.S. are so small that it cannot reflect exact possibility of BSE and the validity of designation of SRMs which is based on the surveillance program makes less effective. The differences between U.S. safeguards and the 2008 IHRs are in the designation of SRMs, restriction of downer cattle, and the regulation of tallow.