03/29/05 Japan`s next step;Challenge challenges

So how are U.S. officials reacting to news that an expert panel in Japan has recommended an exemption of American cattle twenty months of age or younger from the now mandatory Japanese b.s.e. testing? Summing up the reaction is U.S.D.A. Undersecretary J.B. Penn. PENN: This is a step in the right direction. It's a very small step. But we still think the Japanese process is going far too slow and it's unnecessarily cumbersome. We would like to see it accelerated and we hope that the Japanese will do that. The panel making the recommendation to Japan's Food Safety Commission specialized in research into prion, the protein that is believed to cause b.s.e. But even with the recommendation, the F.S.C. says it will still be May or June at the very earliest before Japan reopens the border to U.S. beef. That is due to a series of public hearings on the recommendation scheduled for the next four weeks. N.O.A.A. Fisheries' updated biological opinion for fish recovery efforts along the Columbia and lower Snake River dams has received its share of challenges, from fishing, environmental, and even some irrigation groups. However, the U.S. Justice Department, representing N.O.A.A. Fisheries, has asked a U.S. District Court in Oregon where challenges have been filed, to reject the challenges. The fishing and environmental groups, and irrigators, filing challenges are doing so for different reasons. But Justice Department filings state that the bio-op is not designed to satisfy all parties involved. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. ALLEN: The news in the last few weeks has been peppered with children that have disappeared or been murdered. The tragedy of the untimely death of a child breaks the heart of a nation. Yet millions of children are slowly being poisoned to death while we turn a blind eye. While parents diligently child-proof their homes this toxic substance continues to enter millions of children each day, eventually destroying their internal organs. Obesity is killing our children. A recent New York Times article reported that for the first time in two centuries, children may have shorter life expectancies than their parents. Look around you, yesterday I saw one little boy, so obese he could barely walk. Does this constitute child abuse? While this boy might not be pummeled to death, his life will reach an untimely end, often at least five years before his peers. He might never be locked in a dark closet, but he could be forever trapped in a body that cannot move, or function, one that could succumbing to Type 2 diabetes, heart or kidney disease and cancer. Childhood obesity or abuse you tell me? I'm Susan Allen and this is Food Forethought.