China offers a plan in wake of poisoned-food scandals

csm ^ | 6/8/07 | By Peter Ford, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

[Flavius]

Beijing - Battered by a wave of poisoned-food scandals around the world, China this week unveiled a new plan to improve its food and drug safety that promised "severe punishment" for producers of fake or poor quality food.

"Guaranteeing the safety of all publicly available foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals must be the alpha and omega of all our work," the five-year plan declared. It pledged to uphold international safety inspection standards and threatened public blacklists of "untrustworthy" food and drug producers.

n this file photo, police hold down the heads of accused criminals at a public arrest session at Beijing Railway station. Executions in China have dropped about 10 percent after the country's top court began reviewing every death sentence in an effort to end miscarriages of justice, state media reported Friday.(AFP/STR/File)

[Flavius]

COOL

Country of Origin Labeling COOL

http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/ansi/cool/

ps chicoms not buying it any of it

[Flavius]

guess someone got to them

but not buying anything they are selling

[martin_fierro]

"AWW YU PET FOOD AW BERONG TO US!"

[gridlock]

When a government has been completely irresponsible on basic law enforcement for an extended period of time, I have a hard time believing it when they say they are really, really serious about enforcing the law this time.

Kind of like when President Bush starts talking about immigration...

[Beth528]

China should be made to pay for trying to kill us and our pets..This is an easy way instead of going to battle with us they poison our food supply..Some how we need to stop buying from that country and I know it will be hard to do since everything we buy comes from China..

[gridlock]

"But there is no downside to improving food safety. This is just doing well by doing good... "You don't want 'Made in China' to mean 'Buyer Beware.' "

It always has. It always will.

The Chinese simply do not dive a rat's patoot about safety, and never will. All of this is just window dressing.

The US should insist on clear Country of Origin labeling of all products, so the customer can make an informed choice. If a mother wants to save a couple of pennies and feed Chinese baby food to her infant, that's a poor choice she should be allowed to make. But selling Chinese baby food of questionable quality without indicating where it comes from is just deceptive.

The American people are intelligent enought to know what to do with the information. It is insulting to be told by our government that we can't be trusted with it.

[Craigswatch]

Using chop sticks, that way the poison doens’t enter the body in one big bite.

[texastoo]

The American people are intelligent enought to know what to do with the information. It is insulting to be told by our government that we can't be trusted with it.

More insulting is the fact that many countries buy out good brand names and continue using the American name. Example: Swift and Co. meats sold out to a company in Brazil last week. More than likely meat will continue to be sold under Swift Co. brand name. Deceiving?

[albee]

"AWW YU PET FOOD AW BERONG TO US!"

Marty, that is hysterical!

LOL!

[mom4kittys]

[Dick Bachert]

On a recent visit to China, a friend spotted this ad in a Beijing newspaper. He sent me the photo with a translation of the ad copy.

BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR AND JOIN CHINA’S NEW MONIED ELITE!

Yes, you can now join the millions of happy and prosperous Chinese citizens taking advantage of the growing numbers of American and Western multinational corporations “outsourcing” their production to the hard-working and industrious people of China. This outsourcing has now spread to their food supplies and ingestible items. Since these firms pay us for gross weight – and this new weight will be pretty gross – and the stupid American government only spot-checks imported items in these categories (they just got lucky on the anti-freeze thing), it has opened an entirely new opportunity which our beloved Chairman is offering to any Chinese citizen willing to do a little of what the foolish Americans call “grunt work.”

Installing one of these state-of-the-art food additive production facilities behind YOUR hovel is as simple as clipping the coupon below and sending it to the address shown. Your production plant will be shipped to you in 4 to 6 weeks. Supplies are limited so don’t fart around. ACT NOW!!

These silly Americans have an expression we have “borrowed” and modified to describe this new and exciting venture: “Don’t give me any s**t.”

Our motto will be “We won’t GIVE you any s**t. But we’ll SELL it to you fools at a really great price.”

AND LOOK FOR A NEW DROP-DEAD MONEY-MAKER COMING SOON. SOYLENT YELLOW PROMISES TO BE BIG!!

[hunter112]

We need to put pressure on every seller in America to find alternatives to Chinese-made s**t.

Oh, and by the way, that picture in the article is probably police goons busting Falun Gong members for breathing the wrong way...

[BlackbirdSST]

The US should insist on clear Country of Origin labeling of all products, so the customer can make an informed choice.

Funny that! If we had informed choice, this Globull market place would be gridlocked. I like it. Blackbird.

[sweetiepiezer]

Thanks for the Peiping,

[mom4kittys]

Do you know if I have missed any articles to ping? I just got a new modem and was not able to log on much lately.

[B4Ranch]

>Kind of like when President Bush starts talking about immigration...<

An excellent example!

[fella]

Congressman Colin Peterson has proposed linking a mandatory NAIS to COOL. But combining COOL with NAIS is simply unnecessary. NAIS would require anyone who owns even one chicken, horse, goat, sheep, cow, pig, elk, deer, or other livestock animal or poultry to register their property with the federal and state governments, individually identify each animal with a unique 15-digit number (and, for many animals, use electronic identification), and report movements to a database within 24 hour. NAIS would end when the animal is slaughtered. In contrast, COOL would require identifying the animal with its country of origin, recording if it ever crosses an international barrier, and then tracking the animals after slaughter in order to allow labeling of the meat. COOL could be accomplished by simply branding each animal with a country brand at the first sale and at border crossings, and then segregating the animals at slaughter and afterwards. (Many people and organizations have undoubtedly developed other simple, low-cost alternatives for implementing COOL.) There is almost no overlap between the two programs, and NAIS would require far more money, time, and intrusion into people’s lives than implementation of COOL.

You can't get one without the other and NAIS (correct spelling should be NASI) is truly "The mark of the beast".

[reagan_fanatic]

China’s new plan - don’t get caught next time.

[Darnright]

Now that is just so wrong (chuckle).