Sunday, August 26, 2012

US Resumes Beef Imports


hat tip: Cataclysmic at Enenews

U.S. Resumes Beef Imports From Japan [Aug 24, 2012] Two- Year Ban on Japanese Beef Lifted. by Amanda Brodhagen at Farms.com
http://www.farms.com/ag-industry-news/u-s-resumes-beef-imports-from-japan-aug-24-2012-713.aspx


[Excerpted] The U.S. Department of Agriculture has given its stamp of approval for Japanese beef to re-enter the United States. Beef exports from Japan to the U.S. were halted after a two year period where Japan was managing a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that occurred in April 2010.

The USDA has carefully reviewed Japan’s food safety measures - looking not only at disease prevention but also their food safety precautions with regards to radioactive contamination. This is major concern especially after the Fukushima nuclear crisis that occurred in Japan last year.

"The U.S. Department of Agriculture made a review of our radiation safety measures and gave a nod to it, so the timing to slaughter for exports remains unchanged," the official said....


Majia here: I'm going to re-post some comments I made a couple of weeks ago about the decision to allow Japanese beef imports http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/what-kind-of-people-populate.html.

In the past, the US had no trouble banning Japanese beef for foot-and-mouth disease, but now throws open the doors for radiated beef, despite widespread evidence of its contamination:

Radiation-Tainted Beef Spreads Through Japan’s Markets The New York Times July 19, 2011:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/world/asia/19beef.html?_r=2
[Excerpted] Japanese agricultural officials say meat from more than 500 cattle that were likely to have been contaminated with radioactive cesium has made its way to supermarkets and restaurants across Japan in recent weeks. Officials say the cattle ate hay that had been stored outside and exposed to radiation.

Majia here: It was not just the hay that contaminated cattle in Japan. Fallout in rain ends up in grass and alfalfa, upon which cattle graze.

Radiation will bio-accumulate in cows. Bio-magnification will occur as people consume beef and milk-related products.

Resuming imports would be fine if we could be confident that the Japanese government was testing every cow butchered and if the US was scanning incoming inventory from Japan.

Unfortunately, testing in Japan has been very limited, as illustrated in this Bloomberg article:

Fukushima Farmers Face Decades of Tainted Crops as Fears Linger. By Aya Takada and Yasumasa Song - Mar 18, 2012 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-03-19/fukushima-farmers-face-decades-of-tainted-crops-as-fears-linger.html

[excerpted] "Farmers in Japan’s Fukushima face years of additional losses as consumers continue to doubt the safety of produce from the region devastated a year ago by the tsunami and nuclear fallout, which may taint crops for decades.

Almost 100,000 farmers lost about 58 billion yen ($694 million) by March 1, or 25 percent of production, according to JA, the country’s biggest agricultural group. Imports of farm products jumped 16 percent to 5.58 trillion yen in 2011, according to the agriculture ministry.

Inadequate testing by the government of rice, milk and fish from the region has prompted consumers to leave them on supermarket shelves and instead select produce from other regions or from overseas. Checks conducted nationwide so far are only 1 percent of what Belarus checked in the past year, a quarter century after the Chernobyl disaster, according to Nobutaka Ishida, a researcher at Norinchukin Research Institute.


Majia here: The US FDA allows high levels of radiation contamination in beef already. http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/madness-institutionalized-at-fda.html

However, since no one is testing beef in the US (or sharing data), we have no idea whether the generic looking hamburger that will be (or already is!) at the grocery store is from Fukushima prefecture, or any other highly contaminated area for that matter.



What kind of people populate governments eager to feed radiation-contaminated food to their populations?


1 comment:

  1. It's not just a matter of contaminated beef from Japan entering the meat section at the grocery store. It is likely that all this beef will exceed the Japanese radiation limits, because there is nowhere else to dump this beef except the US. Thanks Barack and Hillary.

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