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The government is to buy and dispose of all so-called downer cattle -- animals that stagger for unknown reasons -- for purposes other than eating from next year, a senior official with the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said Tuesday.
"We're working out regulations that will ban from next year the slaughter of downer cows where the cause of disease cannot be known without precision inspections,ˇ± a ministry official said. ˇ°We're discussing with other government agencies how to secure the budget to buy and dispose of them."
In May, the U.S. Department of Agriculture also announced it will stop slaughter all downer cows. The official said the government will kill and examine downer cows for mad cow disease and dispose of them.
But the government will probably permit slaughter of downer cows that show only one of four symptoms -- fractures, delivery in obstructed labor, calcium shortage after birth, and flatulence -- and sell them for consumption as before.
About 600 downer cattle were slaughtered and sold for consumption in Gyeonggi Province last year, but statistics for the whole country are not yet available.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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