FDA to public: Worry about our dead rivers, not radiation

MANILA, Philippines—The head of the Philippine Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Wednesday chided the public for fearing that food from Japan was contaminated by radioactivity.

To allay these fears, the FDA said it would conduct radiation tests on food items from Japan that entered the country after March 11, when a 9.0-magnitude quake and powerful tsunami damaged a nuclear plant in northeast Japan, raising radiation levels there.
Dr. Suzette Lazo said the public should “worry more” about the country’s “dead rivers” than the nuclear plume from the disabled nuclear plant in Fukushima prefecture, noting that the polluted rivers have a dangerously high lead content.

“There is nothing to worry about,” Lazo told reporters on Wednesday after a meeting with food importers at the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI), where imported products underwent radiation screening recently.

The chances of someone dying from radiation from Japan are smaller than getting hit by a truck, she said.

Noodles, tea, milk

The PNRI has been checking radiation levels of products from Japan such as chocolate, noodles, tea, milk, rice, and seasonings after the World Health Organization (WHO) said it detected radioactive contamination in the milk and vegetables from Fukushima.

Lazo said the products that came in before the quake were safe to eat.

The FDA and the PNRI will conduct more radiation tests on products that entered the country after the nuclear reactors in the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant were damaged by the quake and the tsunami. The products would include soy products, milk and noodles, Lazo said.

She said the FDA would conduct “random sampling” of the food items from post-earthquake Japan “very soon.”

The WHO recently described as “serious” the high radiation levels it found in some food items in Fukushima.

Screening

The PNRI said travelers from Japan need not undergo radiation screening.

In its bulletin on Wednesday, the agency said the WHO declared that travelers outside Fukushima registered safe radiation levels.

The agency said no abnormal amount of radioactivity was found on travelers from Japan who requested scanning from the PNRI.

“According to the World Health Organization, travelers returning from Japan who have come from beyond the 20-km evacuation zone surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and who have undergone proper screening and decontamination procedures in Japan, and travelers from all other areas, do not pose a radioactive health risk to others and do not require screening,” the PNRI added.

It confirmed on Tuesday that a Japanese-Filipino family from Fukushima had recently asked to be tested for radioactivity at the PNRI. The family of three had normal radiation levels, the agency said.