Radioactive cesium detected in tea products in Saitama, Chiba
TOKYO —
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Saturday that radioactive cesium above the government’s specified safety limit has been detected in tea products in Saitama and Chiba prefectures.
According to an NHK report, the substances were detected during snap inspections carried out Friday. The ministry said it found 2,720 becquerels of cesium per kilogram in tea products in Chiba and up to 1,530 becquerels of cesium in tea products from Saitama. The legal limit is 500 becquerels.
The ministry has asked the two prefectural governments to find out where the tea leaves in the products came from.
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23 Comments
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6
Nicky Washida
And yet NOTHING was found in the rice they harvested in fukushima? Come on J government.
0
Utrack
I hope they find out where the tea leaves come from.
1
Reinaert Albrecht
And they just found out that the mushrooms in Fukushima are highly radioactive. Surprise!
3
kurisupisu
More likely they should be asking how the tea was contaminated?
Contamination is in Chiba and Saitama how did it get there?
And what of Tokyo?
So many unanswered questions that are not being answered!
2
smithinjapan
Wow... that's the first time I've ever heard of a snap inspection carried out here, and I hope there are a lot more. Usually they call a week ahead and ask the place to be inspected to prepare the proper materials for inspection.
Anyway, we're all going to get the fallout in one form or another, guaranteed.
1
BurakuminDes
This is not looking good folks. Chinese, Sri-Lankan and Indian teas only are the way to go.
0
Asagao
Very suspicious that only tea leaves far away are officially contaminated. The only thing that will save us is the labels on food. Check everything.
0
Apsara
Did they actually say this? All the news I have seen says that the radiation detected in the rice was below the limit, not that nothing was found. I won't be eating it anyway of course!
3
Darren Brannan
One of my twitter contacts posted a med certificate online showing his young daughter had cesium in her blood. They live in kawaguchi saitama. The plume went south.. That is why Tochigi, ibaragi and chiba and yes, tokyo are having bigger problems than many places in Tohoku. Do you realise how many billions of Bq of isotopes are collected in Tokyo met every week in waste water? I don't think this typhoon will have eased their problems. There are so many barrels of waste they cannot bury already. I would be very surprised if the artesian water in Tokyo is not highly radioactive, but one can only hope that a lot of cesium got washed into the rivers and out to sea this weekend.
4
Darren Brannan
I banned my 2 yr old from drinking milk at the hoikuen but they are still drinking mugicha.. Barley is the highest irradiated of all the teas now. How far can u go? It is the littlies that are drinking it every day and the ones most susceptible to damage. Check out the stats on mugi ( flour, beer and tea grades) in the two top producers of ibaraki and tochigi. Very very high. That is my worry.
-1
daveyd
@Darren. link? Thought not.
0
melguy
Fell from the sky, of course.
A good rinsing will have moved a lot of radioactivity into the streams, rivers, and bays. Not so good for the marine ecosystem, but the dilution factor is huge, and it will have reduced a lot of contamination in gutters, drains, etc.
-1
JapanGal
Link?
2
Patrick Smash
Asagao, labels on food will save us? In Japan, where food labeling scandals are rife? "Product of China" is probably the only label we can trust.
5
Darren Brannan
@daveyd http://d.hatena.ne.jp/rakkochan+zaiseihatan/20110821/p1 http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2130969765992376601 http://www.pref.ibaraki.jp/important/20110311eq/nousanbutsu/20110809_01/
want more links? Thought not.
yes the Cesium is going down in barley...yes the barley we will all consume has probably already been harvested. Have a go at me if you wish.Like I would care anyway.I am doing my own research to protect my family.
4
warnerbro
One problem with this testing procedure is that there are no penalties. The only thing that the government does when products that violate standards are sold to consumers is to ask producers to refrain from sending the contaminated product to the market. If people started going to prison when official standards are violated, then more of the contaminated stuff might be found before it goes into kindergartners' mouths.
4
Darren Brannan
That is exactly right Warnerbro.So much contaminated beef etc has already entered kindergartners's mouths.Nothing is a problem until that problem is isolated and proved to be a problem..fact is, few are looking.All this focus on Cesium beef and yet Fukushima and northern prefectures have been moving pork,chicken,vegies,fish and manure around Japan since March.Sludge is made into fertiliser and sold to farms around the country.Far from being a cover up MAFF are deliberately spreading the good tidings around the parts of Japan to places who fared better. I could be ultra cynical and say that this was a ploy to make the population eat from the diseased bread basket of Japan but I will bite my tongue. Cesium beef outbreaks in Shimane..Pork in Kyushu..all from Fukushima.Katsuo and Sanma being dragged ashore in remote prefectures to be sold to a wary public.Supermarkets that have begun to label everything as 'kokusan' and play tricks with boxes to fool the public. I could go on but I would have to provide links...which I can but can't be @rsed.
3
Darren Brannan
http://tsukuba2011.blog60.fc2.com/blog-entry-332.html
the blue indicates 'undetected' and green and other colours indicate rice from the 'less than 500 Bq/kg (more lenient than the standard Japan allowed for food from Europe after Chernobyl) to the red of 'hey..I ain't eating this'.
for rice and barley.
1
HumanTarget
I happened to be guzzling green tea at the moment of reading this article.
Makes me wish they would actually list the names of the products when they make these announcements.
2
jforce
Spread the word to your kids' schools to check out everything. Don't settle for their embarrassment over this situation. Don't settle for the generic labeled products marked from Japan. We have to keep that food out of the food supply and make these apathetic lemmings know the truth. (Not to be over insulting, but it's hard not to be ... especially when institutions should've done this themselves months ago!)
1
Samantha Zoe Aso
I tackled the school about the lunches. From the start of this term, all ingredients used are listed with their point of origin on the school's website page. Suginami-ku is asking all schools to follow suit. Whilst my fears have been a wee bit allayed, I am still totally on top of the whole thing. I don't feel like I canst my guard down at all. These measures should have been implemented months ago. Still produce being sold in the local shops from Fukushima.
1
Oracle
People ask why Saitama and Tokyo. Well, some think it actually comes from Ibaraki's infamous Tokai-mura rather than Fukushima. I seem to have gotten out the area just in time.
0
Darren Brannan
funny you should say that Oracle, shuukan gendai did some tests outside that place and found quite elevated geiger readings still.
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