nuclear-news

Japan acts to ban Fukushima cattle sales, as radiation problems continue

Japan Bans Radioactive Cattle 4 Months After Nuclear Disaster, Bloomberg, By Aya Takada – Jul 19, 2011  19 July 11    Japan’s government, struggling to contain radiation contamination among beef cattle, is being blamed by consumers and lawmakers for negligence over its handling of the food safety crisis, even as it moved to ban shipments

Authorities discovered 637 cattle that had been fed hay contaminated with radioactive cesium and then shipped to market from farms in northern prefectures including Fukushima, Masahiro Seki, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ livestock and feed division, said in an interview.

Four months after a massive earthquake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station causing the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the government has halted all shipments of cattle from the area. Aeon Co., Japan’s biggest supermarket chain, said July 16 it had sold beef from cattle tainted by radiation to customers at 14 of its stores in Tokyo and four other prefectures…….

Products including spinach, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, tea, milk, plums and fish have been found to be contaminated with cesium and iodine as far as 360 kilometers from Dai-Ichi. Tokyo Electric Power Co., operator of the stricken station, said June 14 it found cesium in milk tested near another nuclear reactor site about 210 kilometers from the damaged plant.

“The contamination occurred because the government did not take appropriate measures,”  Yoko Tomiyama, chairwoman of the Consumers Union of Japan, said in a telephone interview today. “They should take responsibility for their negligence.

July 19, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | - Fukushima 2011