A rare ray of good cheer in the product-safety story. Japanese inspectors have given a clean bill of health to the Chinese dumpling factory whose products laced with pesticide made at least 10 people ill in Japan, including a five-year old girl who remains in a coma.
The frozen dumplings were tainted with methamidiphos and another toxic chemical, dichlorvos. Japan’s health minister said on Tuesday that he believed the dumplings had been deliberately tampered with.
The issue has touched the same raw nerves in Japan that contaminated exports of pet food and toothpaste did in the U.S. and was scandalous enough to scupper a proposed merger between the importer, Japan Tobacco, and Nissin Food after it became known that it had taken more than a month for Japan Tobacco to alert the public after getting the first reports of the illnesses.
The frozen dumplings were made by Tianyang Food based in Hebei.
