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'Another pesticide found earlier in Chinese dumplings'
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Thu, Feb 07, 2008
The Straits Times
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TOKYO - TRACES of another pesticide were detected in dumplings made by the same Chinese company whose products have led to food-poisoning cases in Japan, a supermarket chain said yesterday.
The revelation came as a Japanese team in China found nothing amiss at the food factory.
Japanese Consumer's Cooperative Union (Co-op), a retailer, said tests detected the chemical, dichlorvos, in both the filling and dough of frozen dumplings made in June by China's Tianyang Food Processing Ltd.
Tianyang is the producer of dumplings contaminated with the pesticide methamidophos and blamed for a string of illnesses in western and central Japan since December.
| In the dichlorvos contamination, the dumplings were recalled after a worker at one of Co-op's outlets complained of oil-like odour in November, Co-op said in a statement released late Tuesday.
China and Japan have sent teams of investigators to each other's country in recent days to determine the cause of the methamidophos contamination, which some Japanese officials suspect may have been deliberate.
An investigation has found nothing amiss at Tianyang's food factory, Chinese state media quoted the joint Chinese-Japanese team as saying yesterday.
Both Tokyo and Beijing have called for close cooperation in investigating the case, which has prompted huge Japanese media coverage following a series of health scares over Chinese products ranging from pet food and toys to toothpaste.
'A joint investigation team of China and Japan into the Tianyang Food company has not detected abnormality after a half-day inspection tour in the plant,' Xinhua news agency said, quoting a Japanese investigator.
'The plant is very clean and well managed, and no abnormality has been detected. Japan will conduct further analysis based on information and data collected in the plant.'
While it was not immediately clear whether the two contaminations were related, the latest disclosure heightened fears in Japan over the safety of products from China, a growing source of cheap foods in high-priced Japan.
'The most important task is to prevent damage from spreading and all we can do is to find out what was the cause and what really happened,' Health Minister Yoichi Masuzoe said yesterday.
'What we need primarily is cooperation between Japan and China.'
The food contamination is a delicate matter for sensitive Sino-Japanese ties, coming ahead of plans by Chinese President Hu Jintao to visit Japan early this year.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao on Tuesday called on Japan and the Japanese media to look at the issue 'calmly, scientifically and responsibly', and not jump to conclusions.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS
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