JAPANESE RETAILER ADMITS SELLING NUCLEAR CONTAMINATED BEEF

TOKYO, Japan – Cases of contaminated vegetables, tea, milk, seafood and water have already stoked anxiety after the world's worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl in 1986, despite assurances from officials that the levels are not dangerous.
Japan's second-biggest retailer Sunday said it had sold beef from cattle that ate nuclear-contaminated feed, the latest in a series of health scares from radiation leaking from a quake-crippled nuclear power plant.

• Aeon said it had sold the contaminated beef at a store in Tokyo and at more than a dozen stores in the surrounding area, as radiation continues to spill from the Fukushima nuclear power plant four months after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
• Aeon said in a statement cattle from Fukushima prefecture were given animal feed originating from rice straw that exceeded the government's limits for radioactive cesium.
• Japan was now likely to ban shipments of beef from around Fukushima, a cabinet minister said yesterday. It was not immediately clear what had delayed such a move, likely to inflame criticism that the government has been slow in its response to the crisis.
• Aeon said it sold 319kg of the beef from April 27 to June 20 at one shop in Tokyo and other shops in Kanagawa and Chiba. Aeon said it also sold the beef in Shizuoka and Ishikawa, both in central Japan.
• The retailer said it would start to check beef shipments from all areas that could potentially have contaminated feed. "The most likely outcome is that we will ban beef shipments," Goshi Hosono, the cabinet minister responsible for coordinating the nuclear clean-up, said.
• Cesium three- to six-times higher than safety standards was found last week in beef shipped to Tokyo from a farmer in Minami Soma city, near Tokyo Electric Power Co's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. A Farm Ministry official said consuming such meat a few times would pose no immediate health risks.

Shipments of certain vegetables from areas near the plant have also been halted due to high radiation levels, while cesium was found at levels above safety limits in fish in waters near Fukushima, stoking worries about seafood in a country where sushi and sashimi are eaten widely.

Source: Agency