Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on Wednesday that it will closely monitor Japanese seafood for radioactive residue. The move follows Japan’s decision to release treated radioactive water from the decommissioned Fukushima nuclear plant starting Aug. 24.
The radioactive water is of concern as it would still contain tritium, a hydrogen isotope that could negatively affect one’s health if ingested in large amounts.
FDA administration official Cheng Wei-chih (鄭維智) said an inter-ministerial meeting will be conducted every quarter with representatives from relevant agencies such as the FDA, agriculture ministry, and Atomic Energy Council among others to address concerns on the matter. Cheng says Taiwan’s import controls on Japanese food adopt inspection measures stricter than international standards to ensure food safety.
In addition, FDA Deputy Director Lin Chin-fu (林金富) says the FDA has already established tritium background values for 52 seafood products. He says these will be used as benchmarks for the continued monitoring of radioactive residue, and products testing above the benchmark may result in further contingency measures.