Significant airborne releases of radioactive materials from the stricken Fukushima Daiichi units occurred between March 13 to 19, 2011. Contaminated food imports into the US from Japan were first observed in our laboratory on March 30, 2011, with several products exceeding the FDA Derived Intervention Level (DIL) for Cesium and Iodine isotopes. Some samples of fresh fish products imported for Sushi restaurants were found to have been inadvertently contaminated by tainted service water in a Fukushima food processing plant. In April, 2011, samples of Koji powder (precurser for soy sauce) were observed to be be contaminated follwed by green tea and seaweed samples in subsequent months. All contaminated food imports were destroyed by the importers, frequently at levels well below the FDA DIL limits.

Contamination of food imports to the United States in the early days after the Fukushima accident

245th National Meeting (2013)

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