China-made bean product may have been contaminated after frozen

TOKYO, Oct. 16 Kyodo -
The China-made green bean product that has caused one consumer in Tokyo to
become sick is believed to have been contaminated with insecticide after it was
frozen at a Chinese factory, its importer Nichirei Foods Inc. said Thursday.
Citing the pre-freezing process in China that includes washing and parboiling
the beans, the food ''would not have such a high concentration (of
organophosphate pesticide dichlorvos) if it was mixed (with dichlorvos) before
being frozen,'' a Nichirei Foods official said.
Police and health ministry officials suspect the frozen beans may have been
deliberately contaminated because health authorities detected 6,900 parts per
million of dichlorvos in the beans, or 34,500 times the maximum level the
government allows for imports.
Meanwhile, dichlorvos was not detected in the beans that a man and a woman in
Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, had eaten before feeling ill, health officials at
the city said.
The findings left the 56-year-old woman in Hachioji, Tokyo, as the only one who
was recognized by health officials to have suffered from the insecticide so
far. She bought the product Saturday, and thawed and ate some of it the
following day, according to the public health office in Hachioji. She vomited
due to a foul taste and smell, and later felt numbness in the mouth and nausea.
The man told the Kashiwa city's health office that he threw up and felt
numbness on his tongue after eating some pieces of the beans Wednesday morning.
Similarly, the woman said she felt numbness on her tongue after consuming the
beans which had been mixed in a boiled dish Sunday.
The Metropolitan Police Department plans to investigate the whole process of
manufacturing, importing and distributing the beans as it is relatively easy
for the public to obtain dichlorvos both in China and Japan, MPD officials
said.
The beans were produced by Yantai Beihai Foodstuff Co. in China's Shandong
Province and imported by the Tokyo-based Nichirei for sale under the ''Ingen''
brand.
According to Nichirei and the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare,
the beans were harvested in China's Heilongjiang Province in August last year
before they were washed, blanched and frozen at a factory in the province.
The beans were packed at Yantai Beihai Foodstuff before being shipped to Japan
for the Ito-Yokado Co. group.
The Chinese company has conducted sample surveys on the beans in the processing
and distribution process to see whether agricultural chemicals have been left
in the product.