Tainted frozen food sickens hundreds in Japan
- 10 years ago
Originally published on January 8, 2014
Around 1,000 people in Japan have fallen ill with symptoms of food poisoning after consuming mostly frozen packaged foods believed to have been tainted with pesticide, although this has not yet been officially confirmed.
Food items such as pizzas, chicken nuggets or corn croquettes are suspected to have been contaminated with doses of a pesticide called malathion at levels 2.6 million times the permitted amount.
At higher concentrations, malathion is metabolized in the human body as malaoxon, a much more toxic substance that can cause symptoms of food poisoning including vomiting and diarrhea.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that hundreds of people called hotlines after falling ill after eating the food items. Consumers also allegedly claimed the food items had an unusually strong smell. Consumers also flooded the Maruha Nichiro company with calls, with the company reporting it received about 460,000 calls from individuals concerned about the contamination.
The food items in question appear to have been produced at a factory in Gunma prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Maruha Nichiro Holdings, the firm that runs the factory that allegedly produced the tainted products, issued a public apology in Japanese newspapers Wednesday (January 8) and has issued a recall of 6.4 million products. Over a million suspected tainted products have already been recovered.
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Around 1,000 people in Japan have fallen ill with symptoms of food poisoning after consuming mostly frozen packaged foods believed to have been tainted with pesticide, although this has not yet been officially confirmed.
Food items such as pizzas, chicken nuggets or corn croquettes are suspected to have been contaminated with doses of a pesticide called malathion at levels 2.6 million times the permitted amount.
At higher concentrations, malathion is metabolized in the human body as malaoxon, a much more toxic substance that can cause symptoms of food poisoning including vomiting and diarrhea.
Japanese broadcaster NHK reported that hundreds of people called hotlines after falling ill after eating the food items. Consumers also allegedly claimed the food items had an unusually strong smell. Consumers also flooded the Maruha Nichiro company with calls, with the company reporting it received about 460,000 calls from individuals concerned about the contamination.
The food items in question appear to have been produced at a factory in Gunma prefecture, north of Tokyo.
Maruha Nichiro Holdings, the firm that runs the factory that allegedly produced the tainted products, issued a public apology in Japanese newspapers Wednesday (January 8) and has issued a recall of 6.4 million products. Over a million suspected tainted products have already been recovered.
--------------------------------------------------------
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