Alert! 3,000 Fukushima Cattle Missing

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has been unable to track the distribution routes of nearly 3,000 cows whose meat is suspected to contain high levels of radioactive cesium, ministry officials said.

The ministry wanted to inspect the meat of 4,626 beef cattle from 15 prefectures because it suspected the animals were fed rice straw contaminated by radioactive substances released at the outbreak of the crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

The meat of 1,630 cows--about 35 percent--had been inspected as of Wednesday, but the ministry says the distribution routes of the remaining 2,996 animals remains unknown.

The ministry ordered the inspections in July last year, after discovering that beef from cows shipped from Fukushima Prefecture contained high levels of radioactive cesium.

Later that month, the ministry asked prefectural governments to conduct inspections and release the identification numbers of cows that were suspected to have been fed rice straw exceeding the government provisional limit of 300 becquerels per kilogram. The local governments carried out the inspections based on information on cattle sales by dealers and wholesalers.

But the ministry believes that some beef from among the 2,996 cattle had already been consumed by July. It also believes that suspect beef was consumed following instructions to test the meat, because checks were not carried out in time....

[link to www.yomiuri.co.jp]

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