Japan's 'Major Problem' With Radioactive Cattle Gets Even Bigger

[Fledermaus]

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's government said the number of cattle fed with hay contaminated by radiation has doubled, two days after shipments of beef from cows raised near the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant were banned.

As of yesterday there were 1,256 potentially contaminated cows from 637 two days earlier, said Kazutoshi Nobuto, a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

"This is a major, major problem," Goshi Hosono, Japan's food safety minister, said yesterday at a press conference in the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan. Hosono is also in charge of the response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The cattle ate tainted straw during a feed-supply shortage after the March earthquake and tsunami caused the reactor meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant north of Tokyo. The government needs to move quickly to allay public concern about food safety, said nuclear physicist Peter Burns.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/07/21/bloomberg1376-LONZP86S972801-3CL2GT5F8SH7TVV2BED2RK9I63.DTL#ixzz1SkZdfJZe

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