Washington has agreed to add a provision to a new beef-trade deal with South Korea allowing Seoul to halt imports of U.S. beef if a new case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy befell the United States, according to Yonhap News.

Under the original terms of the agreement, reached last month, South Korea would have been allowed to ban U.S. beef following a new case of BSE in the United States only if the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) lowered the U.S. BSE risk classification from its current "controlled-risk" status.

The deal also called for resumption of bone-in and boneless U.S. beef from cattle of all ages on May 15, but Seoul has stalled amid a flurry of public protests over BSE fears.

"We are in the process of finalizing an exchange of letters with Korea to clarify," Gretchen Hamel, spokeswoman for the U.S. Trade Representative, told Meatingplace.com.

She added, "Every government has the right to protect its citizens from health and safety risks in accordance with [Genearl Agreement on Tariffs and Trade] Article XX and the [World Trade Organization Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement]. The United States takes public health and safety concerns very seriously and believes that the import protocol contains appropriate standards and procedures to ensure the safety of imported U.S. beef."

OIE Director General Jean-Luc Angot, meanwhile, told reporters in Seoul that the U.S.-South Korea beef deal is based on stricter quarantine guidelines than his organization's international standards, including measures to help prevent the possible shipment of BSE-contaminated beef, Yonhap reported.

Angot noted that OIE doesn't consider meat at risk of being contaminated with BSE if it has had no contact with specified risk materials, and that there has been no evidence linking consumption of meat to human contraction of BSE.

By Tom Johnston on 5/19/2008 for Meatingplace.com