Chinese beans sicken woman
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Extremely high concentrations of pesticide have been detected in a pack of frozen green beans imported from China by Nichirei Foods Inc., the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Tokyo metropolitan government announced Wednesday.
The beans were found to be contaminated with high levels of the organic phosphate pesticide dichlorvos.
A 56-year-old housewife in Hachioji, western Tokyo, was hospitalized Sunday after she started eating the beans before spitting them out.
The metropolitan government said the beans were ingen green beans and the package contained 250 grams of them.
The ministry is warning customers not to eat this brand of beans imported from China, and is suspending the importation of all products from the factory in China that supplied the beans.
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the incident as a suspected poisoning case, but it has found no evidence so far that the package had been tampered with.
The woman who fell ill purchased the beans Saturday at Ito-Yokado Minami-Osawa store in Hachioji, an outlet of the Ito-Yokado Co. supermarket chain.
She fell ill Sunday after she sauteed the beans and attempted to eat some at about 9:30 p.m. She spat the beans out after sensing a numbness spreading in her mouth and a feeling of nausea. She said she also smelled a petroleumlike odor.
The woman was hospitalized in nearby Machida and was released the following day.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health on Tuesday night tested frozen beans taken from the packet that the woman had not cooked. It detected dichlorvos at a level of 6,900 parts per million--34,500 times higher than the residue standard set under the Food Sanitation Law of 0.2 ppm.
Tests on the beans the woman had cooked found pesticide at a level of 4,100 ppm. However, the pesticide was not detected in any other packages of the product on sale at the Hachioji supermarket.
According to Nichirei Foods, the beans were produced at a farm in China's Heilongjiang Province, and were packaged on July 7 at a factory of Yantai Beihai Foodstuff Co. in Laiyang, Shandong Province.
Dichlorvos was not used or stored at the farm, with no records showing the use of the pesticide at the factory.
From the factory, 50,760 packages processed on the same day were delivered to 331 Ito-Yokado outlets in Japan. Ito-Yokado Co. removed all of the products from its stores Monday morning.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said at a press conference Wednesday that the Foreign Ministry had reported the problem to the Chinese government, via the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday night, while requesting the Chinese government provide related information.
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More illness claims filed
KASHIWA, Chiba--Two people who ate Chinese frozen green beans produced by the same firm that produced beans found to be contaminated with pesticide dichlorvos claim they experienced nausea and felt numbness on the tongue, Kashiwa municipal public health center said Wednesday.
They were not made seriously ill, a health center official said.
Public health centers and other similar entities in Tokyo, Kanagawa and Fukushima prefectures had reportedly received by 7 p.m. Wednesday claims from eight people who said they experienced nausea or diarrhea after eating the product.
(Oct. 16, 2008) http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081016TDY01302.htm
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Extremely high concentrations of pesticide have been detected in a pack of frozen green beans imported from China by Nichirei Foods Inc., the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Tokyo metropolitan government announced Wednesday.
The beans were found to be contaminated with high levels of the organic phosphate pesticide dichlorvos.
A 56-year-old housewife in Hachioji, western Tokyo, was hospitalized Sunday after she started eating the beans before spitting them out.
The metropolitan government said the beans were ingen green beans and the package contained 250 grams of them.
The ministry is warning customers not to eat this brand of beans imported from China, and is suspending the importation of all products from the factory in China that supplied the beans.
The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating the incident as a suspected poisoning case, but it has found no evidence so far that the package had been tampered with.
The woman who fell ill purchased the beans Saturday at Ito-Yokado Minami-Osawa store in Hachioji, an outlet of the Ito-Yokado Co. supermarket chain.
She fell ill Sunday after she sauteed the beans and attempted to eat some at about 9:30 p.m. She spat the beans out after sensing a numbness spreading in her mouth and a feeling of nausea. She said she also smelled a petroleumlike odor.
The woman was hospitalized in nearby Machida and was released the following day.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health on Tuesday night tested frozen beans taken from the packet that the woman had not cooked. It detected dichlorvos at a level of 6,900 parts per million--34,500 times higher than the residue standard set under the Food Sanitation Law of 0.2 ppm.
Tests on the beans the woman had cooked found pesticide at a level of 4,100 ppm. However, the pesticide was not detected in any other packages of the product on sale at the Hachioji supermarket.
According to Nichirei Foods, the beans were produced at a farm in China's Heilongjiang Province, and were packaged on July 7 at a factory of Yantai Beihai Foodstuff Co. in Laiyang, Shandong Province.
Dichlorvos was not used or stored at the farm, with no records showing the use of the pesticide at the factory.
From the factory, 50,760 packages processed on the same day were delivered to 331 Ito-Yokado outlets in Japan. Ito-Yokado Co. removed all of the products from its stores Monday morning.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said at a press conference Wednesday that the Foreign Ministry had reported the problem to the Chinese government, via the Chinese Embassy on Tuesday night, while requesting the Chinese government provide related information.
===
More illness claims filed
KASHIWA, Chiba--Two people who ate Chinese frozen green beans produced by the same firm that produced beans found to be contaminated with pesticide dichlorvos claim they experienced nausea and felt numbness on the tongue, Kashiwa municipal public health center said Wednesday.
They were not made seriously ill, a health center official said.
Public health centers and other similar entities in Tokyo, Kanagawa and Fukushima prefectures had reportedly received by 7 p.m. Wednesday claims from eight people who said they experienced nausea or diarrhea after eating the product.
(Oct. 16, 2008) http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081016TDY01302.htm
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