‘Hot’ milk in Brazilian wrangle

Press, 1 September 1986, Page 10

‘Hot’ milk in Brazilian wrangle

NZPA-Reuter

Rio de Janeiro

Some 3000 tonnes of powdered milk from Ireland, said to contain high amounts of radioactivity, are stored at the port of Santos as Brazilian Government officials decide whether to keep the lot or reject it.

“We have orders to keep the milk stored here until further notice,” said a port spokesman.

Octavio de Mello Alvarenga, president of the Brazilian Agriculture Society, told reporters on Saturday that the milk would be returned to Ireland because of its high accumulation of radioac-

“If that milk went for sale it would be a crime, because it would put in risk the health of the Brazilian population,” Mr Alvarenga said.

In Dublin the Irish Dairy Board said yesterday that allegations about the powdered milk were untrue and that it was well within safe radiation limits. The board was concerned that the dispute might harm Ireland’s dairy trade abroad. The newspaper “O Estado de Sao Paulo” reported that in a meeting in Sao Paulo on Saturday, health authorities had decided that the product would be kept in storage

at Santos until more tests were made.

“O Estado” quoted the head of the Radiological Protection Department, Aroldo Lessa Peixoto de Azevedo, as saying a first analysis had revealed a level of radioactive contamination 1000 times higher than the level normally found in the powdered milk produced in Brazil. Dr de Azevedo said that if new tests showed levels of contamination higher than those found in the first analysis he would recommend the milk not be put up for sale.

Eduardo Penna Franca, head of the radiobiology

department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, said, “This radioactivity does not frighten me.”

The Brazilian Government could not ship it back.

“Even though tests showed the milk had a radioactivity 1000 times higher than the milk produced in Brazil, it is still within the international standards,” he said.

The powdered milk arrived at the port of Santos on August 14. It was imported by Ecotrading, a private trading company with headquarters in Salvador, capital of the north-eastern state of Bahia.