JCP calls for animal disease control law to be revised

The Japanese Communist Party on March 17 proposed a bill to revise the Domestic Animal Infectious Disease Control Law in order to prevent damages caused by avian flu from spreading.

Under the current law, veterinarians, not owners of farm animals, are required to report cases of infectious diseases in animals or such suspicion to relevant offices. The law does not include provisions for compensation for losses to the owners.

The JCP proposal calls for both owners and veterinarians to report to the relevant offices any symptoms that are believed to be of an infectious disease. It also includes provisions that the state must compensate the owners for two-thirds of their financial losses from such diseases.

In announcing the bill, JCP Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi criticized the government for having neglected to learn lessons from the BSE cases, thus causing an avian flu epidemic, and emphasized that the JCP will do all it can to press the government to establish compensation measures for poultry farmers. (end)