Posted on 03/08/2009 4:46:11 AM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
(BEIJING) - China said on Monday food security remains "grim" after a series of health scandals, the most recent being last year's tainted milk formula which killed at least six toddlers and made almost 300,000 sick.
A new food-safety law, approved on Saturday in an accelerated process since the milk scandal came to light in September, attempts to fix a fragmentary regulatory system which officials blame for recurring problems.
"At present, China's food-security situation remains grim with high risks and contradictions," the Ministry of Health said in documents handed to reporters on Monday.
The food-safety law, which takes effect on June 1, sets quality and safety standards for products and lays out a regulatory system as well as a risk-monitoring system.
China approved in principle a new food-safety law in October 2007 following scandals involving unsafe toothpaste, seafood and pet food, among other products.
Nonetheless, the children developed kidney stones after melamine, an industrial compound used in making plastics and fertilizer, was added to milk and other products to cheat protein tests, prompting Chinese-made products to be stripped from shelves worldwide.
A month later, the World Health Organization's food safety chief, Jorgen Schlundt, called China's food-safety system "disjointed" and said poor communications between ministries and agencies may have prolonged the melamine poisonings.
China sentenced two people to death in January for producing or selling milk adulterated with melamine, and jailed the chairwoman of now bankrupt dairy producer Sanlu Group for life, but the fall-out from the scandal continues......
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
A farmer pours away milk next to a cow at a cattle farm in Changchun, Jilin province February 17, 2009. Tons of milk is dumped due to dramatic fall of milk price after the country's melamine-tainted milk scandal, China Daily reported. (REUTERS/China Daily)
For all we put down China, they at least have ACCOUNTABILITY
unlike the USA for Congress.
China has accountability due to pressure from world markets only. If they could get away with it, they would. Now as for their constant thievery of Western technology (for military purposes almost exclusively) and blatant disregard for patent and copyright laws, they are accountable..only to themselves. Such are the ways of communist dictatorships held in place by less than ethical Western business practices and political expediency. There will be a price to pay coming soon.
Is there no world pressure on America for accountability
regarding the present financial crisis?
So why is there no accountability, no transparency?
ANSWER: The justice department is filled with cowards.
Our media is complicit in the mess.
I wonder how many are aware that the peanuts that caused the scare that has effectively destroyed the industry came from China or Argentina? Lab workers from the company has testified to that fact and we heard barely a peep. Meanwhile American growers and the companies that process their peanuts say that have no new orders.
Can you please point me to a source that backs that fact up. Being from Georgia, I would love to be able to defend our home-grown product.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0219/p01s04-ussc.html
“Indeed, PCA used few Georgia peanuts. In fact, one lab worker testified to Congress that the original contamination may have come from organic peanuts shipped in from China. The other plants here, such as Birdsong and Golden Peanut, are known as quality operators, shipping local product to some of the biggest brand names on grocery store shelves.”
Anybody hungry yet? I lost an hour. Where did it go?
Thank you for the source link, very interesting indeed!
However one thing strikes me as also very important...... we are not sure whether the salmonella came from tainted foreign peanuts or from the filthy conditions in the plant itself. ??
How can you screw up peanuts? All you do is wash them in slighty salty water and roast them.
I really really hate china for this, and I can’t for the life of me understand why we take their crap!
Thanks you for the continued pings. I am compiling a list of items for a letter to our congress critters, and this is amongst the top three.
Well well well, I’ll check that link, thnx
Thanks... If we can find every way to avoid imports, I’d it as fast as possible. We buy honey from locals...
We were just discussing how good my homemade bread is—and we can freeze it.
I bet 90 percent of the workforce is illegal.
Not there. It's a family owned place. The women are sharp and evereyone else there looks like they are educated or in the process of. Well done, because they advertise by people spreading their reputation for food with other people.
I like that Chinese idea. It's full at lunch and dinner. And people respect the place because sloppy people are't found there, unless they must attire themselves that way.
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