Old FDA import alert falsely shared as new US ban on Japanese food products

This article is more than one year old.
Published on April 7, 2023 at 05:50
2 min read
By Tommy WANG, AFP Hong Kong

A Chinese-language newspaper report that falsely claims the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned imports of Japanese food in March 2023 over "nuclear contamination" concerns has circulated on social media. However, a Japanese official from the agricultural ministry told AFP on March 31 that the ministry was "not aware" the US had issued such a ban. The article referred to an old FDA import alert that was "deactivated" by the agency in September 2021.

"A week ago, the latest FDA legislation was in effect," reads a report from the US-based Chinese-language newspaper Southern Chinese Daily published on March 18, 2023 shared on Weibo.

"The FDA issued Alert 99-33, which prohibits the following Japanese foods from entering the United States," the report continues.

It then lists fresh milk, milk powder, butter and a dozen other categories of foods that have purportedly been banned, claiming that the United States banned these Japanese food imports for "Fukushima nuclear contamination" reasons -- referring to the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011.

Screenshot of the false report, taken on March 31, 2023.

The false report was also published in the Southern Chinese Daily's e-edition.

It was shared in similar posts on Twitter, Facebook, and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

The posts circulated online after the Japanese government said it planned to start releasing more than a million tonnes of treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi plant into the sea this year, AFP reported.

The plan faces staunch resistance from local fishing communities and neighbouring countries, despite being endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which says it "will not cause any harm to the environment".

A Japanese agricultural ministry official told AFP on March 31 that the ministry was "not aware" that such a ban had been issued by the United States in March.

As of April 6, there have been no official reports about the purported ban.

Old alert

Further searches found the import alert cited in the false posts was no longer in effect.

The FDA published this statement in September 2021 in response to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power facility incident, saying it had "deactivated" Import Alert #99-33 (IA) on September 21.

The agency said it had determined the power plant incident posed "a very low risk to American consumers from radioactive contaminated foods imported from Japan".

According to the FDA's official website, the Japanese government temporarily banned the sale of certain food products in affected prefectures, both within Japan and for export, due to the public health risk associated with radionuclide contamination immediately after the Fukushima disaster.

An archive of Import Alert 99-33 saved on the Wayback Machine website shows a corresponding list of products and goods cited in the false posts.

The webpage has since been removed by the FDA.

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