HIROSHIMA, Kyodo (AP) — Hiroshima Prefecture and the city government of Osaka said Tuesday they have detected a small amount of pesticide in imported meat buns made at a factory in China.
The meat buns were not made by Tianyang Food, the maker of dumplings that caused 10 people to suffer food poisoning in Japan. Traces of a highly toxic organophosphate pesticide called methamidophos were found in the dough and fillings of the meat buns, the local authorities said.
The local governments detected a maximum amount of 0.64 parts per million of methamidophos and suspect it is highly likely that it is residual pesticide.
Though the amount was unlikely to have an effect on human health, it was relatively high for residual pesticide, they said.
On Monday, Kagawa Prefecture announced that it had detected traces of an organophosphate pesticide called dichlorvos in frozen mackerel processed in and imported from China.
The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry on Tuesday told quarantine offices in Japan to instruct importers of meat buns and frozen mackerel to conduct voluntary inspections when they import the products.
The meat buns were made by a factory in Shandong on Aug. 2, 2006, and imported and sold by Osaka-based Nicky Foods Co. The pesticide was not detected from products in stock that have different use-by dates.
A 73-year-old man in Miyoshi, Hiroshima Prefecture, claimed that he became dizzy after eating the meat buns in late January, but a doctor who examined him denied the possibility of organophosphate intoxication, according to the prefecture.
