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No pesticide residue detected on China beans in Japan

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-17 00:16

LAIYANG - Chinese police are investigating the case in which beans exported to Japan reportedly caused sickness in that country, an official said here on Thursday.

Mu Xin, vice mayor of Laiyang City, Shandong Province, where Yantai Beihai Foodstuff Co. Ltd is based, did not give further details on the police investigation, but said tests on samples of frozen green beans was carried out on Wednesday, just to find no sign of pesticide residue.

No abnormal signs were found in the beans' planting and processing procedures, Mu said at a news briefing.

According to Japanese media, a woman fell ill after eating the beans produced by the company, a joint venture established in 1990 by Taiwan and Japanese investors. The woman experienced numbness in her mouth after eating the beans on Sunday.

Japanese health authorities reportedly said they had detected 6,900 parts per million of organophosphate pesticide dichlorvos in the beans, or 34,500 times the maximum level the government allows for imports.

"Such a dichlorvos existence in the beans is equivalent to the level when the beans are soaked in the pesticide," said a food safety expert who refused to be named.

The contamination was suspected by Japan police to be deliberate, according to media reports.

"The company and its production base in the northeastern Heilongjiang Province have never used such a kind of pesticide," said Lan Mingde, Yantai Beihai Foodstuff general manager.

The company's pesticide management was in complete accord with the standards Japan requires, he said.

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