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US follows Hong-Kong and Taiwan to restrict food imports from Japan over radionuclide contamination concern

US restricts food import from Japan over radionuclide contamination concern
The United States has recently tightened restriction of food import from Japan. According to Import Alert 99-33 issued by US FDA, a list of Japanese food will be banned unless they pass physical examination, which includes milk, butter, milk-based infant formula, and other milk products; vegetables and vegetable products; rice and whole grain; fish; meat and poultry; venus clam; sea urchin; yuzu fruit; Kiwi fruit. FAD indicates that revision to this import alert is due to radionuclide contamination.
FDA says it will continue consultation with Japanese government to ensure products from the affected prefectures do not pose a health risk to US consumers. FDA will continue monitoring the public health risks due to radionuclide contamination, and when appropriate will remove the Import Alert and resume routine coverage of entries.
http://en.people.cn/n/2015/0509/c98649-8889831.html

My comments

What is interesting, and what should be also interesting to the American people is that it is China which publishes this article about the US import Alert 99-33 issued by US FDA last April 2015 whereas up to now I have not seen it published/posted by any US media nor website.

What is also interesting, is it took the Japanese contaminated food repeatedly found in Taiwan and Hong-Kong in last March and April , and well published in the chinese media and websites, for finally the US FDA to wake up after 4 years of lethargy to take some action.

If things are getting too hot with exports from Tohoku and Kanto contaminated regions to the US, Japan will change the origin adress of their products as being from Kansai, Chubu, Chugoku, Shikoku and Kyushu regions…With adequate paperwork, good credible certificates of origin, it will not pass under contamination control, and business will continue as usual.

Or they will mix a highly contaminated product from one area with a lesser contaminated product from another area, so as to lower the contamination level to become acceptable to the level of acceptable threshold of the US, as they are already doing inside Japan with rice.


Regarding imports the US FDA mostly relies on the certificates of origin, not questioning the veracity of the data provided on those certificates, and very seldom monitor the contamination level of all incoming food stocks, only once in a blue moon at random.

May 12, 2015 - Posted by | USA |

5 Comments »

  1. Thanks for this update. This is my take on the document: https://miningawareness.wordpress.com/2015/04/24/japan-food-radiation-alerts-to-market-export-or-not/ Unfortunately, NO, the US did NOT wake up. They will take anything that Japan considers acceptable for export. And, the standard is apparently still at 1,500 Bq/kg for food in the US, which is the worst in the world. Compare to Japan’s 100 Bq/kg and half that for Japanese children. Everyone actually increased the amount of radiation allowed in food post-Fukushima because that is the point of the rules so that trade will not be slowed down. However, European outrage made Europe lower theirs back to 600 Bq/kg and refuse to take anything higher than 100 Bq/kg from Japan. And, they have Japan on the honor system, whereas this begs a lie. Even more frightening is that, at least in Europe, chocolate, coffee and even potatoes and peanuts are allowed higher amounts than the norm in a radiological emergency. The first is the supposition that they are non-food items! The second is apparently because they are more likely to take up radiation. Potatoes remain a staff of life in much of Europe. That’s why FAO has outrageous high numbers too so as not to inhibit trade after an accident. You read the documents and think that it’s after a local nuclear accident but no, they enlarged it for after worldwide accidents. The high number is based on the idea of a time limit and the assumption that most of the food is clean from someplace else! This is discussed in documents – I think Canada had the best discussion of it. I think Australia and Canada follow FAO with their 1,000 Bq/kg. Australia and Canada do have far worse water standards for tritium than the US – as does Switzerland and Finland. Australia is the worst for tritium per liter in the world. It is a whopping 70,000 Bq/liter, if I recall correctly. Switzerland sits at around 7,000 Bq/liter; I think Finland is around 30,000 Bq/liter; the US at around 700 Bq/liter if there aren’t other similar radionuclides. This is by memory so people need to double check the tritium. There is a document which gives tritium by country – I think it’s from Canada. What is really interesting is that the US used to have around 300 or 380 Bq/kg as their food limits and, if I recall correctly, this was imposed for protection after Chernobyl. I’m not sure if it was done under Bush Sr. or Clinton. I think that this was the number still for Taiwan. I can’t recall if the US raised the number to 1,500 Bq post-Fukushima or even before. It may have been after baby Bush. It seems that the US and probably Scotland are to become the dumping ground for the world’s nuclear waste. Radioactive food is also nuclear waste and the radiation stays in the people’s bodies and goes out into the earth and water too. So, you think that Japan is bad, but they love their people compared to the US, which must really hate the American people or be really stupid. Japan is and has in the past actively tried to export the nuclear waste to keep Japan as clean as possible. Why they intend to re-open the reactors though I cannot fathom. Exelon Nuclear was a major funder of Obama.

    Comment by miningawareness | May 12, 2015 | Reply

    • Thank you for your input, very appreciated.

      Comment by dunrenard | May 12, 2015 | Reply

  2. […] Nuclear News | dunrenard | 12 May 2015 […]

    Pingback by US follows Hong-Kong and Taiwan to restrict food imports from Japan over radionuclide contamination concern | May 12, 2015 | Reply

  4. Reblogged. Thank you.

    Comment by GarryRogers | December 1, 2016 | Reply


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