'Gyoza' halted by Japan fed to Chinese workers

BEIJING (Kyodo) Chinese-made frozen dumplings recalled after the pesticide-tainted products caused food-poisoning cases in Japan apparently went on to sicken steelmakers in China's Hebei Province, who were given the contaminated "gyoza" for free, company sources and employees said Saturday.

The products, made and recalled by Tianyang Food in Hebei, were delivered to employees of Tangshan Iron and Steel Co. for free from April to May last year, they said.

The steelmaker recalled the dumplings after some of the employees reported they were getting diarrhea and other symptoms of food poisoning, they said.

"I developed severe abdominal pain immediately after eating (the dumplings), and I had to stay in bed for two days," one of the employees told Kyodo News.

It is unclear whether the employee was poisoned by methamidophos, the pesticide detected in the Japanese food-poisoning cases involving Tianyang Food-made dumplings, because he did not undergo a medical examination.

Other employees who got the free dumplings threw them away, angered by the fact that they were being given the same products that caused the food poisoning in Japan.

"I discarded them right away," said one female employee. "It's the gyoza dumplings that caused food poisoning."

When the steelmaker later tried to recall the gyoza, most had already been eaten or thrown away and couldn't be recalled, company sources said.

China had told Japan that four people were hit by food poisoning last June after eating Tianyang Food dumplings, but it did not tell Japan about the incident at the steelmaker.

The steelmaker distributed the dumplings in question based on instructions that its parent, Hebei Iron and Steel Group Co., received from provincial authorities supervising the state-owned food company, the sources said.

Although provincial authorities deemed the products safe and gave the green light for distributing them to the steel workers, many apparently believed it was dangerous to eat the products.

"Why would we be eating hand-me-down products from Japan?" asked another female employee. "It seems as if they are saying Japanese will get sick but Chinese will not."

Meanwhile, the food-poisoning cases in June involved employees of Chengde Iron and Steel, also a subsidiary of Hebei Iron and Steel Group, other sources said.

The four people involved in the cases in June also ate the dumplings distributed at Chengde Iron and Steel, the sources said.

The food-poisoning scandal surfaced early last year when 10 people became sick in Japan between December 2007 and January 2008. One of them was a girl who fell into critical condition after eating the gyoza from Tianyang Food.

The two countries disagree on where the contamination occurred, and each has suggested it took place in the other country.