With three-wheeled scooters loaded with boxes of seafood and vegetables whizzing through narrow passages, Tsukiji Central Wholesale Market in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, was a hive of activity early in the morning. Every day, masses of seafood and vegetables are brought into the market, which houses 900 wholesale and retail stores. The foodstuffs are then transported to locations throughout the country to be sold to consumers.

Officials of the Tokyo metropolitan government's Wholesale Market Sanitation Inspection Station keep a close eye on the produce to prevent harmful or poor-quality items from being sold at the market. Tsukiji market is a place where perishable foods are gathered and distributed, so it's vital to strictly monitor products that are handled here,' said Makoto Ikeda, who heads the inspectors at the station. 'In this regard, we take pride in our efforts to protect the safety of food stuffs. At 4 a.m. in the morning, two inspectors start examining products arriving in the market before they are put up for auction. After auctions, more inspectors check wholesale stores for irregularities. 'We closely examine whether fish are handled in proper sanitary conditions,' said Kyuichiro Kimura, one of the inspectors. Tsukiji market handles the largest volume of marine products among Tokyo wholesale markets. Of 719,745 tons of marine products traded in Tokyo wholesale markets in fiscal 2002, 637,499 tons, or 88.6 percent, were handled at Tsukiji, meaning 2,344 tons of marine products are sold every day.

In fiscal 2001, the sanitation station examined 11,079 food items for bacteria, poisons, parasites, food additives, chemical substances and residues of antibacterial substances, and 757 were found not to meet standards. I nspectors pay special attention to bacteria that could cause food poisoning, and to antibiotic and agricultural chemical residues, Kimura said. Concerns about chemicals. In fiscal 2001, 8.8 million tons of marine products were consumed in Japan, which translates into about 38.7 kilograms per capita. But people in the country have become worried about contamination of fish by substances such as mercury, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls .On June 3, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry issued a warning for pregnant women, saying they should limit their consumption of alfonsin sea bream and swordfish, which contain relatively high levels of methyl mercury. Because it was the first time for the ministry to have named particular types of fish in a cautionary notice, the announcement shocked the public. In the notice, the ministry advised expectant mothers not to eat the two kinds of fish more than twice a week, assuming that they would consume60-80 grams of the fish at a time. It also recommended that they not eat three types of whale and shark more than once a week and bottlenose dolphin more than once in two months. Following extensive media reports about the announcement, many consumers stopped buying the seafood named. Consequently, the price of alfonsin and swordfish fell by half.

The announcement reminded many people of the Minamata mercury poisoning incident that occurred in the 1950s.In Shizuoka Prefecture, where 3,930 tons of alfonsin were caught in 2001, sales of the fish plummeted, and the price tumbled. However, as a result of subsequent explanations provided by the ministry, the confusion was largely alleviated.

Consumers have become more sensitive about the safety of food following a series of incidents since the mad cow disease outbreak in Japan, and they want to know more about the food they eat,' said Masahiro Kawajiri, who heads the federation of fisheries cooperative associations in the prefecture.

The announcement said it's OK for people who aren't pregnant to eat the fish, but consumers didn't listen to that bit,' said Yasuko Iwai, an official of Shinmie Fishermen's Union in Nagasaki Prefecture. Yuriko Shiraishi, the representative of Women's Forum for Fish (WFF), a citizens group that distributes information about marine products to consumers, believes the way the announcement was made and its timing made people confused and worried. However, releasing such information was a good move, she said, urging the government to provide similar information regularly. The ministry's research showed that the daily mercury intake in Japan has been stable over the last 10 years. While the daily intake in 1992 was 8.7 micrograms for a person weighing 50 kilograms, the figure in 2001 was seven micrograms, which accounted for 35 percent of tolerable intake a day. (A microgram is one-millionth of a gram.)The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Food Standards Australia New Zealand issued similar warnings concerning the consumption of mercury in January 2001, followed by Canada and Britain in 2002 and Norway this year. But mercury is not the only substance in foodstuffs that has aroused public concern. In June this year, the Fisheries Agency released the results of a survey on dioxins in fish it conducted between fiscal 1999 and 2002. The report showed that 423 of 102 species of fish, including about 100 imported species as well as those caught in Japanese waters, contained an averageof 0.908 picogram of dioxins per gram. (A picogram is one-trillionth of a gram.)'We examined species of fish that are frequently consumed by Japanese, said Yuichi Nagasaka, the Fisheries Agency official who compiled the report. Japanese absorb more than 90 percent of dioxins from foods. Of that, about 80 percent comes from fish, according to the agency. In May the People's Association on Countermeasures for Dioxin and Endocrine Disruptors, a nonprofit organization based in Toshima Ward, Tokyo, published a booklet focusing on the contamination of fish around Japanese coastlines based on an Environment Agency survey in 1999. The survey showed high dioxin levels in fish caught in Tokyo Bay, Osaka Bay and the Seto Inland Sea. Unlike mercury, dioxins are artificial substances emitted in the process of incinerating garbage and metals, and bleaching paper. The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer has reported that the most poisonous dioxins can cause cancer, and the lethal dose for mice is as poisonous as the bacteria that causes dysentery, according to the Environment Ministry. Because dioxins accumulate in fat, fatty fish, such as conger eel and Japanese horse mackerel, contain relatively high levels of dioxins. The government set the tolerable daily intake (TDI) of dioxins at four picograms per kilogram. According to this standard, it is safe for a person weighing 50 kilograms to consume up to 200 picograms, equivalent to that contained in about 40 grams of conger, a day.

Very little information is available about dioxins in food, and there's no law that regulates people's dioxin intake,' said Yasuko Moriwaki, a member of the NPO. Moriwaki's group says the dioxin TDI in Japan should be reduced to two picograms in line with international standards, and the government should set up regulations based on that figure. Imports of marine products although most of the fish consumed in Japan used to be caught around the country's coasts, this nation has now become the largest importer of marine products in the world. Meanwhile, the number of those working in the domestic industry continues to decline. In 2001, the fishing industry had 252,000 workers. In fiscal 2001, Japan imported 3.82 million tons of marine products from more than 140 countries, which accounted for nearly half of the fish consumed in the country. 'Many people don't know that Japan spends 2 trillion yen on fish from abroad,' the WFF's Shiraishi said. Quarantine stations across the country are the first places where imported fish are examined for safety. In fiscal 2002, quarantine stations across the country examined a total of 361,693 items of imported marine products, including processed ones. In July and August this year, quarantine station officials found that salmon imported from Chile contained oxytetracycline, a type of antibiotic, at a level above the national permissible level. Consumers also were disturbed that kabayaki grilled eel imported from China was found to contain levels of enrofloxacin, an antibacterial substance administered to farmed fish and animals, above the national safety standard. These scandals fueled public anxiety about the overall safety of imported seafood. However, Ola Brattvoll, who heads the Norwegian Seafood Export Council in Japan, said consistent efforts to ensure the food safety would help gain public confidence in marine products in light of rising consumer awareness on the issue. Norway exported 2.11 million tons of seafood in 2002. Its biggest export market was Japan, which bought 252,000 tons. As a seafood-exporting country, Norway makes sure that its system is in line with international standards, based on international systems and regulations, such as the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points and the Codex, a joint commission under the WHO and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. As part of its efforts to ensure food safety in the country, Norway introduced the Food Safety Act this year, based on two important principles--'full-value chain perspective on food safety,' ensuring food safety from the sea to supermarket shelves, and 'responsibility of individual companies to ensure and secure food safety,' according to Brattvoll. Under the new law, the Food Safety Authority is scheduled to be launched in January next year. Brattvoll said rising awareness among consumers about food safety lies behind the series of systematic changes in food production and distribution in the country. 'The overall reason for this change is a growing awareness about who is really the boss when it comes to food safety, and that's the consumer, 'he said. 'It's the growing recognition of the importance of listening to consumers and seeing what consumers need, and how can we assure consumers that our products are safe to eat,' he said. The next installment, to appear in late October, will examine problems concerning health foods.

September 30, 2003.