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RECALL: Made-in-China dumplings removed from a supermarket in Osaka on Wednesday. -- PHOTO: AP
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IN TOKYO - LOCAL health offices throughout Japan were flooded with reports yesterday of more people who had fallen ill after eating Chinese-made dumplings, some as far back as November.
At least 207 people nationwide said they had also suffered vomiting and other symptoms, but officials are still investigating whether the newly reported cases were due to the same toxic chemical, Methamidophos.
Japan on Wednesday announced a nationwide recall of dumplings made by a Chinese firm after 10 people fell ill because of the dumplings, which were laced with the banned pesticide.
The dumplings are known as gyoza in Japan, and are similar to Chinese guotie.
The Japanese government, under fire for being slow in responding to the problem, yesterday convened an emergency ministerial meeting.
It decided to review the current system of notification in order to prevent a repeat of a food poisoning case involving two women in December last year.
The local authorities in Chiba prefecture had failed to notify the Health Ministry of the case.
It was not until police disclosed on Wednesday that the women were among the 10 who became ill after eating imported dumplings over the past month that the government reacted.
The government yesterday also pledged to review procedures for the inspection of imported foods, especially frozen ones, which until now had been considered very safe.
Checks on frozen food are conducted by local health officials using items randomly picked from supermarkets.
The tainted dumplings were made by Tianyang Food, based in Hebei province in northern China. The company has suspended the production and export of its dumplings, which are not sold in China and are exported only to Japan, said Xinhua news agency.
China yesterday said initial testing of samples of two batches of the dumplings in question found them to be safe. The export certificates showed that pesticide residues in the cabbage and ginger used in the dumplings had met standards.
South Korea yesterday began a safety inspection of China-made dumplings, reported Yonhap news agency.
Methamidophos was detected in the consumed dumplings as well as in the packaging, suggesting that it could have been introduced during the manufacturing or packaging process intentionally or otherwise.
The pesticide is said to be widely used by Chinese farmers despite an official ban by the government in January last year. The dumplings in question were made last October.
The pesticide is also said to be sometimes used in Chinese factories to kill pests.
JT Foods, which imported the dumplings, has asked retailers to pull all gyoza and other products made by Tianyang from their shelves. It has also urged consumers to return any such items to the stores.
Several other companies have also decided to recall products made by Tianyang.
Last year, there was a scare in Japan over contaminated vegetables from China.
With public anxiety now rekindled over the safety of Chinese food products, many restaurants have decided to temporarily stop using processed foods from China.
Meanwhile, a number of schools have decided to drop gyoza - popular in Japan - from their lunch menus for students and staff even though their gyoza did not come from Tianyang.
'We decided to use other items as we did not want to alarm parents unduly,' said a teacher at a school in Nara prefecture, in western Japan.
wengkin@sph.com.sg
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