Contamination of Food Chain Set to Rise as Japan Fights Radiation Crisis

[jpak]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-27/food-contamination-set-to-rise-as-japan-fights-radiation-crisis-at-reactor.html

Radioactive contamination in food is likely to worsen as Japan enters a third straight week of battling the biggest nuclear-energy crisis since Chernobyl.

“The number of radiation-affected foods will likely increase as each prefecture is testing its produce,” Taku Ohhara, an official at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, said in a phone interview today. As of 11 p.m. yesterday, some 99 products, including milk and vegetables, were found to be contaminated in Tokyo and five prefectures to its north and east, according to the health ministry’s statement on its website.

Shoppers in Hong Kong, Singapore and Sydney are shunning Japanese food products in supermarkets amid concern about radiation. The plight adds to the drags on economic growth caused by as much as 25 trillion yen ($307 billion) of damage from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. Japan exported 481 billion yen of food last year, accounting for 0.7 percent of total exports, government figures show.

Radiation on some vegetables produced in Fukushima and Chiba prefectures was higher than legal standards, Japan’s Health Ministry said yesterday, according to Kyodo News. Chiba detected above-maximum radiation on 11 vegetables including red- leaf lettuce, Kyodo reported today.

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