A requirement put into effect six years ago after the Fukushima earthquake for Iodine-131 (I-131) radiation testing of food from East Japan has been lifted by the Hong Kong Center for Food Safety.

The half-life of I-131  is only about eight days. More than seven years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0 set off a massive tsunami, sending a 50-foot wall of water over three Fukushima Daiichi reactors. During the next three days, the cores of the reactors melted down, sending radiation over East Japan.   Hong Kong is 1,600 miles from the site of the disaster.

Initially, Hong Kong prohibited imports of vegetables, fruits, and milk products from Japan’s Fukushima, Ibaraki, Tochigi, Chiba, and Gunma prefectures. Later imports could proceed, but only with certificates issued by Japan attesting that radiation levels for I-131, Caesium (Cs)-134, and Cs-137 did not exceed limits set by the Codex Alimentarius Commission or Codex.

Hong Kong is the latest to drop I-131 from that list. By comparison, the half-life for Cs-134 is a little over two years, and for Cs-137 the half-life is 30 years.

Like Singapore and the EU, Hong Kong will continue to require Japan to provide certificates for Cs-134 and 137. The Hong Kong Center for Food Safety, which is a unit of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department of Hong Kong’s city government, daily tests of Japanese imports for radiation levels.

Hong Kong’s radiation tests are not limited to food from the five prefectures, but includes all of Japan. It tests “every consignment of food products imported from Japan.”

During the most recent 24-hour period, from noon April 25 to noon April, 26, Hong Kong food safety officials conducted radiation tests on 341 imported Japanese food products. These included fruits and vegetables, milk and milk beverages, milk powder, frozen confections, aquatic products, meat and meat products, and drinks. All passed.

The Center for Food Safety hadn’t found any Japanese food exceeding Codex limits since March 23, 2011, when three samples of radishes, turnips, and spinach were “too hot.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last updated its ongoing “import alert” stemming from the Fukushima incident in March. FDA added venison to Miyagi and Nagano Prefectures to the alert and removed chestnuts from Tochigi Prefecture.

The FDA import alert says: “Districts may detain, without physical examination, the specified products from firms in the Fukushima, Aomori, Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Iwate, Miyagi, Nagano, Niigata, Saitama Shizuoka, Tochigi, Yamagata and Yamanashi prefectures.

“FDA and the Japanese government will continue to collaborate to ensure products from the affected prefectures do not pose a health risk to U.S. consumers. FDA will continue monitoring the public health risks due to radionuclide contamination, and when appropriate will deactivate the Import Alert and resume routine coverage of entries.”

Products from the indicated prefectures are:

AOMORI PREFECTURE:
-Wild Mushrooms

CHIBA PREFECTURE:
-Shitake mushrooms;
-Common Carp;
-Silver Crucian Carp
-Eel
-Boar

FUKUSHIMA PREFECTURE:
-Raw Milk;
-Wild Aralia Sprout;
-Bamboo Shoot;
-Non-head type leafy vegetables (i.e., Japanese Mustard Spinach (Komatsuna), Garland Chrysanthemum, Qing-geng-cai, Potherb Mustard (Mizuna), Leaf Lettuce (red), Spinach and other non-heading leafy vegetables);
-Head type leafy vegetables (i.e. Cabbage, Chinese Cabbage and Lettuce);
-Flower head brassicas Vegetables (i.e. Broccoli and Cauliflower);
-Chestnuts;
-Wild Japanese Butterbur Scrape;
-Japanese Royal Fern;
-Kiwi Fruit;
-Koshiabura (wild tree sprout);
-Log-grown Shitake mushrooms;
-Log-grown Pholiota Nameko (outdoor cultivation)
-Mushroom;
-Ostrich Fern;
-Pteridium Aquilinum (bracken fern);
-Rice;
-Turnips
-Ume;
-Giant Butterbur;
-Uwabamisou;
-Yuzu Fruit;
-Ayu (excluding farm raised);
-Brass blotched rockfish;
-Salmon (landlocked) (excluding farm raised);
-Common Carp (excluding farm raised);
-Fox Jacopever;
-Black Porgy;
-Dace;
-Eel;
-Seabass;
-Rockfish (Sebastes cheni);
-Scorpion Fish
-Starry Flounder;
-Surfperch;
-Venus Clam;
-Whitespotted Char (excluding farm raised);
-Bear meat;
-Beef;
-Boar;
-Cooper Pheasant;
-Green Pheasant;
-Hare Meat;
-Spot-Billed Duck

GUMNA PREFECTURE:
-Wild Mushrooms;
-Salmon (landlocked) (excluding farm raised);
-Whitespotted Char (excluding farm raised);
-Bear meat;
-Boar;
-Copper Pheasant;
-Venison;

IBARAKI PREFECTURE:
-Log-grown Shitake mushrooms;
-Bamboo shoots;
-Koshiabura (wild tree sprout);
-Eel;
-Channel Catfish (excluding farm raised);
-Boar

IWATE PREFECTURE:
-Bamboo shoots;
-Log-grown Brick-cap mushrooms (outdoor cultivation)
-Log-grown Shitake mushrooms;
-Log-grown Pholiota Nameko (outdoor cultivation)
-Wild Mushrooms;
-Wild Japanese parsley;
-Royal fern;
-Koshiabura (wild tree sprout);
-Pteridium aquilinum (bracken fern);
-Black Porgy;
-Whitespotted Char (excluding farm raised);
-Bear meat;
-Beef;
-Venison;
-Cooper Pheasant

MIYAGI PREFECTURE:
-Royal Fern;
-Bamboo Shoots;
-Koshiabura (wild tree sprout);
-Wild Araila Sprout
-Ostrich Ferns;
-Log-grown Shitake mushrooms (outdoor cultivation);
-Wild Mushrooms;
-Ayu (excluding farm raised);
-Salmon (landlocked) (excluding farm raised);
-Black Porgy;
-Dace;
-Whitespotted Char (excluding farm raised);
-Beef;
-Bear Meat;
-Boar meat;
-Venison

NAGANO PREFECTURE:
-Wild Mushrooms
-Koshisabura
-Venison

NIIGATA PREFECTURE:
-Koshiabura;
-Bear Meat

SAITAMA PREFECTURE:
-Wild Mushrooms

SHIZUOKA PREFECTURE:
-Wild Mushrooms

TOCHIGI PREFECTURE:
-Wild Aralai Sprouts;
-Bamboo Shoots;
-Wild Japanese Peppers;
-Wild Royal Fern;
-Koshiabura (wild tree sprout);
-Wild Pteridium aquilinum (bracken fern);
-Wild Ostrich Ferns;
-Log-grown Brick-cap mushrooms (outdoor cultivation)
-Log-grown Shitake mushrooms;
-Log-grown Pholiota Nameko (outdoor gardening)
-Wild Mushrooms;
-Beef;
-Boar meat;
-Venison

YAMAGATA PREFECTURE:
-Bear Meat
YAMANASHI PREFECTURE:
-Wild Mushrooms

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