FDA halts some food shipments from Japan

FDA halts some food shipments from Japan    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will stop all imports of milk, vegetable and fruit products from the Japanese prefectures of Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma that face potential radiation contamination from the ongoing disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, a spokesman told ABC News on Tuesday.
   The day before the agency repeated assurances that food products from Japan so far have not posed any health risk to U.S. consumers and that its import tracking system has been programmed to automatically flag all shipments of regulated products from Japan for extra scrutiny.
   Under U.S. law, shippers of food and feed products must transmit prior notice of a shipment before arrival. Products can be inspected and held at ports of entry if a threat is identified.
   U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which is primarily responsible for managing the flow of goods across the border, said last week that customs officers are using handheld radiation detectors to test for the presence of radiation on shipments and people arriving from Japan at airports. It also uses radiation isotope identifiers to isolate the type and source of radiation if any is detected with the personal devices.
   The FDA said it is working with CBP to determine if their Automated Targeting System can assist in identifying shipments of FDA-regulated products, other than food, originating from Japan before they arrive so that these shipments can be better targeted for examination. FDA's import staff will review each shipment of regulated goods originating from Japan and determine if it should be examined and sampled or released.
   At seaports and international mail and express parcel facilities, radiation portal monitors used for checking entire containers for the presence of radiological or nuclear weapons are also being used to test for the presence of radiation from Japan.
   CBP and the FDA are also working with the U.S. Agriculture Department to develop inspection protocols for food products from Japan.
   The United States only imports a tiny amount of milk, fruit and vegetables — $6.7 million out of $16.5 billion in total imports — from Japan. Overall, food imports from Japan account for less than 4 percent of total worldwide imports. Seafood, snack food and processed fruits and vegetables are the most common types of food products imported from Japan, according to the FDA. Dairy products imported from Japan make up 0.1 percent of all FDA-regulated products imported from Japan.
   Most of the imported dairy products are processed foods such as casein and cheese. Imported fruits and vegetables include potatoes, frozen vegetables, citrus fruits and melons.
   The heavy damage caused by the earthquake and tsunami to the region has prevented export shipments from the affected area. The Japanese Ministry of Health ordered a stop to the sale of raw milk, spinach and kakina from Fukushima prefecture, and of spinach and kakina from Ibaraki, Tochigi and Gunma prefectures after detecting cesium and iodine in the food. Scientists say consuming food that contains radiation byproducts can cause cancer.
   On Tuesday, the Health Ministry reported that 11 types of vegetables grown in Fukushima, including broccoli and cabbage, 'drastically' exceed legal limits, according to the Kyodo News Agency.
   European Union officials continue to monitor the situation and wait for additional guidance about potential health dangers from international organizations, Henrik Hololei, the chief of staff for the EU commissioner of transport, said at the American Association of Port Authorities' spring conference in Washington.
   Aircraft and goods are screened based on assessments of their risk, but no aircraft from Japan has shown higher levels of radiation so far, he said. ' Eric Kulisch