Japan to check radiation risk to breast milk

Japan's health ministry is to check whether breast milk has been affected by radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the spokesman for Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Thursday. -- PHOTO: AFP

TOKYO - JAPAN'S health ministry is to check whether breast milk has been affected by radiation from the stricken Fukushima nuclear plant, the spokesman for Prime Minister Naoto Kan said on Thursday.

The plant was hit by the March 11 quake and tsunami and a series of explosions. It has leaked radiation into the air, ground and sea in the world's worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl 25 years ago.

'We have judged that too much concern is unnecessary,' Mr Yukio Edano, who is also the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters according to the Kyodo News agency.

'But I understand that mothers are worried and so, just to be sure, I gave the order.'

Mr Edano spoke after a civic group said testing by a private institute had found slightly elevated iodine-131 readings in samples provided by four mothers in prefectures near Tokyo. 

-- AFP