News that more than a thousand people have suffered food poisoning after eating insecticide-tainted gyoza meat and vegetable dumplings imported from China has set off alarms about food safety. Traces of the organo-phosphate methamidophos were found in the frozen gyoza. This chemical is so lethal that Japan does not approve it as a farm chemical.
About a minute after eating the gyoza, a male high school senior in Hyogo Prebfecture collapsed from a chair, convulsed and vomited. A 5-year-old girl in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture, temporarily lost consciousness. Japan and China should cooperate to determine how the chemical got into the gyoza. Importers and distributors must immediately recall suspected gyoza from the market. And the Japanese government must work out measures to prevent a recurrence of similar food poisoning.
The biggest problem is that the food contamination did not become widely known until more than a month after the first case of food poisoning occurred. On Dec. 28, 2007, a mother and daughter in Chiba City became the first victims. But the Chiba and Kanagawa prefectural police didn't announce the start of an investigation until Jan. 30. What were they — importers and distributors, the health ministry, the farm ministry, local governments and police — doing during the month? They should have been warning people earlier not to eat suspected gyoza.