Alternative BSE risk assessment methodology for beef and beef offal imported into Japan.

The Food Safety Commission (FSC) of Japan, established in July 2003, has its own initiative to conduct risk assessments on food stuffs known as "self-tasking assessment". Within this framework, the FSC decided to conduct a risk assessment of beef and beef offal imported into Japan from countries with no previous BSE reports; thus, a methodology was formed to suit to this purpose. This methodology was partly based on the previous assessments of Japanese domestic beef and beef imported from U.S.A./Canada, but some modifications were made. Other organizations' assessment methods, such as those used for BSE status assessment in live cattle by the OIE and EFSA's GBR, were also consulted. In this review, the authors introduce this alternative methodology, which reflects (1) the risk of live cattle in the assessed country including temporal risks of BSE invasion and domestic propagation, with the assessment results verified by surveillance data, and (2) the risk of beef and beef offal consisting of cumulative BSE risk by types of slaughtering and meat production processes implemented and the status of mechanically recovered meat production. Other possible influencing factors such as atypical BSE cases were also reviewed. The key characteristic of the current assessment is a combination of the time-sequential risk level of live cattle and qualitative risk level of meat production at present in an assessed country.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) safety measures in Japan.

Since the first identification of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in Japan in September 2001, a series of safety measures was introduced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and the Food Safety Commission of the Cabinet Office. These measures included blanket BSE testing and removal of specified risk materials at slaughterhouses, surveillance of risk animals and a ban on the use of meat-and-bone meals and traceability on all farms. The Japanese experience over the past five years has shed light on several issues in countries that have a low BSE incidence.

[Control and measure of zoonoses].

A world trend such as the free trade agreement (FTA) promoted by the World Trade Organization ( WTO) results in an expansion of both importation and exportation of industrial materials, grain, food products and domestic animals, as well as pets and wild animals. Nowadays not only foods but also various kinds of animals are arrived from all over the world to Japan, and an increase in the risk for invasion of zoonoses from abroad to Japan has been pointed out for many years. Actually, BSE, O-157, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) etc., invaded into Japan within recent several years, and a possibility of the outbreak of rabies, plaque or tularemia which might be introduced by imported animals is still high. In this article, I discuss the risk for zoonoses from the following points. They are "from animal to human, background of the world wide expansion of zoonoses, a warning to human being from nature, zoonosis control strategy, and future problems on zoonosis to be dissolved".

Collection and analysis of hematopoietic progenitor cells from cynomolgus macaques (Macaca fascicularis): assessment of cross-reacting monoclonal antibodies.

Previous studies have shown that hematopoietic progenitor cells can be isolated from human or nonhuman primate bone marrow (BM) cells. In the present study, we studied the cross-reactivity of 13 anti-human CD34, two anti-human c-Kit, and one anti-human CD133 monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with cynomolgus macaque (Macaca fascicularis) BM cells, using flow cytometric analysis, cell enrichment, and clonogenic assay. Among the 13 anti-human CD34 mAbs assessed, six cross-reacted as previously reported by other groups. However, only three of these six mAbs (clones 561, 563, and 12.8) recognized cynomolgus CD34+ cells that formed progenitor colonies when grown in methylcellulose culture. Similarly, of the two anti-human c-Kit mAbs (clones NU-c-kit and 95C3) that were previously reported to cross-react with cynomolgus BM cells, only one (clone NU-c-kit) resulted in a similar outcome. The anti-human CD133 mAb (clone AC133) also cross-reacted with cynomolgus BM cells, although these cells did not give rise to colonies when grown in culture. These results suggest that antibodies that cross-react with nonhuman primate cells may not identify the hematopoietic cells of interest. In addition, while the CD34 mAb (clone 561) results in the selection of hematopoietic progenitor cells of all lineages when assessed in methylcellulose culture, the c-Kit(high) fraction (NU-c-kit) exclusively identifies erythroid-specific progenitor cells after growth in culture. It is important to consider these findings when selecting cross-reacting mAbs to identify cells of hematopoietic lineages in macaque species.