Food Imports From Japan To Be Checked For Contamination

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RADIATION

Food imports to be checked for contamination
By PONGPHON SARNSAMAK
THE NATION
2011-03-16

The Food and Drug Administra-tion will impose strict controls on all foods and consumer products imported from Japan.

All FDA checkpoints across the country have been instructed to test consumer products imported from Japan, including vegetables, fruits, grains, meat products, seaweed, seafood products, and dairy products, FDA secretary-general Dr Pipat Yingseri said yesterday.

The FDA will also call on importers to provide information of the situation in the disaster-hit country, and offer guidelines on testing foodstuffs for radioactive contamination. The FDA will meet the importers at 1.30pm today. The agency will also ask the Office of Atoms for Peace to conduct random tests on imported food products.

"Even though there is no clear information about radiation in Japan, we still have to take precautions," he said.

Rujaporn Channachai, of Siriraj Hospital's radiology department, said people should absorb no more than 1 millisievert of radiation per year, though medical workers often have up to 20mSv in their bloodstream.

He said the human body can naturally eliminate radioactive substances and some foods have previously been reported to carry small portions of radioactive contamination.
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Ministry of Public Health on high alert screen food imports from Japan
TNA 2011-03-16

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's ministries of Public Health and Natural Resources and Environment will closely monitor and inspect food imported from Japan and Thailand's air quality to check radiation levels but downplayed any direct and immediate threat to the country following explosions in Japanese nuclear power plants in Fukushima.

The crisis at the Fukushima No 1 plant has now spread to four of its six reactors following Friday's quake and tsunami which knocked out the plant's cooling systems. The Japanese government said that radiation levels near a quake-hit nuclear plant are now harmful to human health after two explosions and a fire at the crippled facility today.

Permanent Secretary for Public Health Paijit Varachit urged the Thai public not to be alarmed, as the ministry has prepared pre-cautionary measures to assure that Thais will remain safe from any possible effects of the nuclear crisis in Japan and to remain confident regarding the Japanese government, considered one of the countries with effective safety measures to protect the health of its public.

He said that there is a possibility that radiation from Japan could be carried to Thailand by radiation-exposed food products and the atmosphere.

Dr Paijit said specialised equipment could be used to detect whether food was contaminated with radiation or not. He believed that radiation from the nuclear power plant would not reach Thailand because of the great distance between the two countries. Nevertheless, the minister is closely following the situation in Japan.

Meanwhile, Chanchai Uerchaikul, Director of the Import and Export Inspection Bureau of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said the agency's Secretary General Pipat Yingsaree has ordered it to coordinate with Thailand's Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP) to send samples of food imported from Japan to for the office to inspect.

In a related development, Public Health Minister Jurin Laksanawisit said that a team of three medical doctors from Rajavithi Hospital arrived in Japan to provide medical help for Thais who were affected by the destructive earthquake and tsunami there.

They were scheduled to move to Sendai, the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture, which was heavily hit by the quake and tsunami, he said, a city with some 300 Thais.

The minister said the ministry arranged 21 additional medical teams for assignment by rotation in Japan.

He assured the public that the measures to examine the food imported from Japan are introduced to protect Thai consumers. (MCOT online news)

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FDA monitors food from Japan, Korea, China
By The Nation
2011-03-17

The Food and Drug Administration yesterday began monitoring food from Japan and nearby countries such as South Korea, Taiwan and some parts of China for possible radioactive contamination.

"We have sent yellow tail tuna and big-eye salmon to the Office of Atoms for Peace for tests," Supaporn Amnuaykij, head of the drug-and-food checkpoint at Suvarnabhumi Airport's Cargo Terminal, said yesterday.

The results should come out within 24 hours, she said.

"Pending test results, importers must keep the remaining products from the same batch at their warehouse," she said.

Agriculture Minister Theera Wongsamut said the Agriculture Department had been assigned to conduct random inspections of agricultural produce coming from Japan to prevent consumers from contacting or ingesting radiation-contaminated food.

Supaporn said food products would be checked for the presence of heavy metals such as mercury and lead.

Japan sent mostly packed snacks and ingredients such as shrimp, scallops, salmon, oysters, big-eye salmon, blood cockles, strawberries and sweet potatoes.

"Most of these products are delivered to Japanese restaurants in the Sukhumvit and Thonglor area," she said.

Saranrak Nummak said her company usually brings in seafood from Japan every two days for Japanese restaurants in the Sukhumvit area.

"Our customers here have been running out of stock for five days already," she said.

Supaporn said the radiation-contamination tests were necessary in the wake of the radioactive leak from a nuclear power plant in Japan that has exploded many times since the massive earthquake and tsunami hit Japan last Friday. The test was just brushed off, as it was last used after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which involved a nuclear power plant in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, now Ukraine, she added.

Nuchaya Yazuda, the owner of a famous Japanese restaurant in Songkhla's Hat Yai district, said her place was still attracting hordes of customers as usual.

"No one has asked about radiation contamination so far," she said.

"By the way, we still have supplies of ingredients from Japan that came to us before the disasters struck there."

The restaurant did not rely on materials from Japan alone because she could find salmon, Japanese rice and other stuff from elsewhere, she said.