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IN TOKYO - JAPANESE police said yesterday that 10 people had fallen ill after eating dumplings made in China, prompting a nationwide recall of the products.
A family of five was hospitalised last week in Chiba prefecture, neighbouring Tokyo, suffering from vomiting and diarrhoea after a meal of dumplings bought at a local supermarket.
A five-year-girl lost consciousness at one stage but the family is reported to have since recovered.
The dumplings are known as gyoza in Japan, and are similar to Chinese guotie.
An insecticide, methamidophos, was found in the packaging of the gyoza, which were made at a factory in northern China's Hebei province.
Police, who are treating the cases as possible attempted murder, said the insecticide could have been mixed into the dumplings during production or at the packaging stage.
There have been two earlier incidences of food poisoning, involving five other people, and also attributed to Chinese dumplings made by the same company.
One case was also in Chiba prefecture and the other in Hyogo prefecture in western Japan.
None of the cases was reported to be life-threatening.
News of the latest food poisoning cases was greeted with alarm in Japan, with television networks switching over to live telecasts of a press conference held by executives of JT Foods, importers of the dumplings.
JT Foods said it was recalling 23 items imported from the same Chinese food processing company. The recalled items include the dumplings, which were sold through a chain of supermarkets around the country.
Many of the items, including processed pork products, were distributed to restaurants for commercial use.
A housewife shopping at a supermarket in Nagoya city, central Japan, told television reporters: 'I will not buy anything made in China.'
Another company based in Hokkaido prefecture, northern Japan, was reported to have imported 10 items from the same Chinese company.
Methamidophos is a toxic chemical that is not approved for use in Japan as an insecticide. But it is said to be widely used in China, especially in growing cabbage, which is a main ingredient in gyoza.
The Chinese authorities in Beijing were alerted to the food poisoning cases by enquiries from the media. They are said to be looking into the matter.
But reports said that staff of the Tianyang Food Processing Plant in Shijiazhuang city, which made the dumplings, told reporters it was impossible that the insecticide could have been mixed into its products at the plant.
The staff said they learnt about the food poisoning cases through the Internet.
The latest scare is expected to lead to a temporary drop in the consumption of imported Chinese food products in Japan.
Last year, imports of fresh vegetables such as green onions and ginger from China declined after growing concerns about the safety of such products.
As a result, many retailers and restaurants were forced to turn to domestically-grown vegetables, even though they are more expensive than Chinese imports, or to switch to other suppliers such as Thailand.
Although checks for illegal amounts of farm chemicals are routinely conducted on fresh food imported from China at ports of entry into Japan, similar checks are apparently not carried out on frozen food products.
wengkin@sph.com.sg
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