WHO Warns of 'More Serious' Food Safety Problem in Japan

With elevated amounts of radiation detected in some produce and milk in Japan, the World Health Organization said today that the food safety situation there "quite clearly" is more serious than it first believed.

The Japanese government halted shipments of milk from one area of the country and spinach from another on Sunday, according to The Associated Press, and two other crops -- canola and chrysanthemum greens -- were also found to be tainted.

While the World Health Organization was initially concerned about produce originating from within 18 miles of Japan's crippled nuclear plant, which has leaked radiation, milk from cows farther away and spinach from about 75 miles away was affected, Peter Cordingley, the Manila-based spokesman for the organization's office for the Western Pacific, told CNN.

"Quite clearly, it is not what we thought in the early stages. It is more serious," he said. "We have seen Japanese people in grocery stores paying close attention to where their produce is coming from, and we think this is a wise practice."

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The organization thought any food contamination problems would be limited. "It's safe to suppose that some contaminated produce got out of the contamination zone," Cordingley told Reuters.

The radiation has left food shoppers wary.

"It doesn't look like a short-term issue," Phil Knall, who lives in Tokyo, told CNN. "I'm definitely concerned about the food that is going to be shipped out from now. I'm definitely thinking about it."

Fears about the food and drinking supply have grown in the days after the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan, which damaged multiple reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and caused some radiation to leak.

There's no sign that tainted Japanese food has reached other countries, Cordingley told Reuters, though China and South Korea have toughened inspections of imported foods from Japan, and some companies were dropping Japanese food from certain areas.

China will monitor imported food for radiation, Reuters reported, citing the Chinese state news agency, Xinhua.

"Japan's nuclear leak has sounded an alarm bell for the international community about the safety of nuclear energy," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said in a speech today, Reuters reported.

And South Korea, which had been inspecting fresh produce from Japan, said it would expand monitoring to include processed and dried foods from the country, the news agency said.

Japanese authorities were handing out bottled water to people in a village about 20 miles from the nuclear plant, because the tap water was found to have radioactive iodine-131, The Wall Street Journal reported. The level would be harmful over time but was not high enough to cause an immediate health risk, authorities said.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the water was OK to use for bathing and other non-consumption purposes, CNN reported. "This level is reportedly going down now," he said.

Edano also reiterated his belief that the amount of radiation found in food, though higher than legal limits, does not pose an immediate health threat, but would be more worrisome if eaten repeatedly over a lifetime, CNN reported.

The concern was great enough for some Asian stores and restaurants to drop food from Japan from their offerings.

Shangri-La Asia Ltd. and Mandarin Oriental International Ltd., with a flagship hotel in Hong Kong, both withdrew fresh food from Japan from their kitchens, Bloomberg reported. South Korea's largest retailer, Lotte Shopping Cos., planned to stop sales of some fish, a spokesman told the news agency.

Companies were looking to alternative countries for their imports.

Richard Rains, chief executive of Sanger Australia Pty., which ships about 35,000 metric tons of beef annually to Japan, said some Australian companies may benefit from Japan's nuclear problem.

"It's still early ... but we think it will help us," he told Bloomberg. "People will need to get their protein from somewhere."