Posted on 04/28/2007 4:44:09 PM PDT by Flavius
SOMETHING was wrong with the babies. The villagers noticed their heads were growing abnormally large while the rest of their bodies were skin and bones. By the time Chinese authorities discovered the culprit — severe malnutrition from fake milk powder — 13 had died.
The scandal, which unfolded three years ago after hundreds of babies fell ill in an eastern Chinese province, became the defining symbol of a broad problem in China's economy. Quality control and product-safety regulation are so poor that people cannot trust the goods on sale.
Until now, the problem has not received much attention outside China but in recent weeks consumers everywhere have been learning about China's safety crisis. Tainted ingredients that originated here made their way into pet food that has killed animals around the world.
Chinese authorities acknowledge the safety problem and have promised repeatedly to fix it, but the disasters keep coming.
Tang Yanli, 45, grand-aunt of a baby who became sick because of the fake milk but eventually recovered, said that even though she now pays more to buy national brands, she remains suspicious. "I don't trust the food I eat," she said.
With China playing an ever-larger role in supplying food and medicine to other countries, recognition of the hazards has not kept up.
By value, China is the world's main exporter of fruit and vegetables, and a major exporter of other food, ranging from apple juice to garlic to sausage casings. But it has been especially poor at meeting international standards.
The US subjects only a small fraction of its food imports to close inspection, but each month rejects about 200 shipments from China, mostly because of concerns about pesticides, antibiotics and misleading labelling. In February, inspectors blocked peas tainted by pesticides, dried plums containing banned additives, pepper contaminated with salmonella and crayfish that were filthy.
Since 2000, some countries have temporarily banned whole categories of Chinese imports. The European Union stopped shipments of shrimp because of banned antibiotics. Japan blocked tea and spinach, citing excessive antibiotic residue. And South Korea banned fermented cabbage after finding parasites.
As globalisation of the food supply progresses, "the food gets more anonymous and gradually you get into a situation where you don't know where exactly it came from and you get more vulnerable to poor quality," said Michiel Keyzer, director of the Centre for World Food Studies at Vrije University in Amsterdam, who researches China's exports to the European Union.
Chinese authorities, while conceding the country has many safety problems, say other countries' assessments of products are sometimes "not accurate" and have implied the bans may be politically motivated, aimed at protecting domestic companies.
Yet the Government has found that companies have cut corners in virtually every aspect of food production and packaging, including improper use of fertiliser, unsanitary packing and poor refrigeration of dairy products.
William O'Brien, president of Hami Food of Beijing, which transports food for the McDonald's restaurant chain and other multinational companies in China, said in some of his competitors' operations, "chilled and frozen products very often come in taxicabs or in vans … That is something that people should worry about."
Not surprisingly, food-related poisonings are common.
Last year, farmers providing duck eggs were found to have used a red dye so the yolks would look reddish instead of yellow, fetching a higher price. The dye turned out to be a cancer-causing substance. In Shanghai, 300 people were poisoned by a chemical additive in pork.
The Government has undertaken a major overhaul of its monitoring system, sending state inspectors to every province, launching spot inspections at supermarkets, and firing a number of corrupt officials.
Frightening!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1684105/posts
Unfortunately it included more than just hair. (Hint) Does your soy sauce ever leave you with that “not so fresh” feeling?
Kimchee is impervious to pesticides, heavy metals, and industrial runoff, but these additives might enhance its flavor.
LOL
So much for dinner...man, that is nasty.
I cannot imagine choosing food imported from China, given all that's already well-known about their environmental atrocities and degradation. The whole country is a superfund dump, as far as I can discern, their falsefront economy and empty rows of skyscrapers notwithstanding. I bet all those finely honed Olympic athletes are just thrilled to read about what the local talent will be preparing for them in Peking next year.
This cannot be, I have been time and again that socialist-commie governments take care of everything and everyone.
"Kimchee" is more accurately a description of food preparation rather than one particular food stuff. Similar to the American use of "pickle" which most people use when they mean "dill pickle" but there are any number of picked foods.
So some kimchee is cabbage-based, others use radish, etc. The real potent one that my wife will sometimes get is a radish-oyster kimchee. Whoowee, does that wake your nose up!
Now don’t you want to just run out and spend thousands of bucks on air fare and tickets for the Beijing Olympics? You would have to be insane...
best steak marinade ever ;)
Fake milk powder. How ingenious. That’s another way to deal with a growing population.
then have someone expose how much of a bonus these bastards got for buying tainted goods for our food supply...
This is a country that could care less if a billion died and we get our vitamins from them?
as a guy who sells vitamins, I have been on this like white on rice. The American vitamin and supplement industry can be roughly divided into three groups: 1)Those who test everything and carefully, 2) Those who tend to have lower standards but still do a lot of testing or else trust their suppliers, and 3) Those who can’t afford to and just trust their suppliers.
The Solgars, Twinlabs, Country Lifes, and Nature’s Plus’s of the world are in group 1, as well as the larger private label labs. Nature’s Plus puts a little piece of paper in many, if not all, bottles that has the test data results from an analytical lab for the ingredients in that lot of product. NOW also does a lot of testing.
Most of the mid-tier suppliers will tend source out testing and the really small local suppliers show little inclination
to do their own testing.
OK, my little garden patch is getting an expansion this year.
Fortunately I live in an agricultural area where I can get homegrown strawberries, corn, peas, and other veggies I don’t grow myself.
That's good to know. I use exclusively TwinLabs because they're easy to swallow and digest because they're capsules.
This thread is scary. Necessary and scary.
And just like for outsourcing our manufacturing and our engineering jobs, nothing will change. ... And the band played on. ... And the Sheeple will sleep.
Thanks for the ping.
.
How was your march?
BUMP!
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