Japan on Wednesday ordered retailers to pull frozen beans from China off the shelves after three people fell ill from eating a product which had 34,500 times the legal limit of pesticide, officials said. Japan's health ministry instructed retailers and importers nation-wide to suspend sales of frozen green beans from a Chinese supplier "until the cause of the incident becomes clear."
A ministry official said that one woman experienced numbness in her mouth Sunday after eating a dish containing the beans, which she had bought at a Tokyo supermarket. She went to hospital and was released with no apparent health problems after an overnight check, he said.
Two more people reported numbness in the mouth and nausea in Chiba prefecture near the capital, a local health official said. It is the latest health scare surrounding food from China, where four children died recently after consuming milk tainted with the industrial chemical melamine. The Tokyo metropolitan government conducted tests on the beans on Tuesday and found they had 34,500 times the pesticide residue level permitted by the Japanese government. The beans were manufactured by Yantai Beihai Foodstuff in eastern China's Shandong province.
A company spokesman said managers did not believe the firm was responsible. "From all the information gathered, we currently suspect this is not a case of pesticides residue (originating from Yantai)," said Jiang Pengfei, from Yantai's business department. He said that the Japanese government wanted to halt shipments but that it was still confirming with its client whether all shipments would end.