Why U.S. doesn't stop tainted food from China

san jose mercury ^ | 5/20/07 | by Rick Weiss

[Flavius]

WASHINGTON - Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

These were among the 107 food imports from China the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.

For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption. And for years, FDA inspectors have simply returned to Chinese importers the small portion of those products they caught - many of which turned up at U.S. borders again, making a second or third attempt at entry.

[mom4kittys]

Thank you so much for that info. I’ve been very curious about their quality.

Good luck with your greenhouse!

[mom4kittys]

Thank you again. That site has really good information.

[threechamps]

EVERYONE WHO EVEN THINKS ONE NEGATIVE THOUGHT TOWARDS THE GLOBALIST DREAM IS A SOCIALIST. CONFORM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Calpernia]

FSIS Web site at:
http://www.fsis.usda.gov or directly subscribe from http://www.govdocs.com/service/multi_subscribe.html?code=USFSIS

[Calpernia]

Spinach grows year round inside too.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

With all that is going on… poisoned foods, illegal aliens, our traitorous president and crooked congress…I am so angry I’m going to go aspirate my house.

(Direct translation from Panamanian Spanish, “aspirar” means to vacuum.)

So, after I finish aspiring, I will check in…maybe. I’m too upset.

[Calpernia]

Won’t vacuuming suck up the ozone layer? You need to check with Al Gore on this :P

[wku man]

Glad to see someone remembers the Cox report. Kilntoon did a great job bombing Kosovo to keep it out of the headlines, and I thought it had been forgotten. But what the hell...we can't let a little thing like thousands of undercover Chicom operatives already in the US (in '99...no telling what the numer is now) get in the way of Wal-Mart profitability, can we?

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!

[James W. Fannin]

No sir, there’s money to be made.

[goldfinch]

No, those people killed their own pets by choosing the cheapest possible food for them. They deserve what they got and blaming the government is a sorry excuse for taking responsibility.

You are mistaken. It was not only the cheap pet foods that were contaminated. Many of the expensive brands were also included. Besides, most of the contaminated products were canned food and treats, which are more expensive than the expensive brands of dry kibbles.

I also believe that people are responsible for their own actions. However, short of preparing their pet's food at home from human quality ingredients, there was no way they could have prevented this tragedy. And, given this thread, I am not sure that we can count on human quality ingredients being safe either.

[goldfinch]

do you think people who’s pets dropped dead look at the labels

It would not have mattered if they read the labels. The labels would not have said 'Made in China'. The contaminated food was made in Canada, using a contaminated product that came from China. Reading the label would not have helped at all.

[BigIsleGal]

Was just in the grocery store last eve and in the produce section I saw “local” grown soybeans! But importing them from the Puna farms in Hawaii is probably too expensive?
The farmers here do a good job and work hard with very little return. Too bad the agribusiness in Hawaii is overlooked because of cheaper prices else where...ie sugar cane & pineapples. The macadamia nut farms are slowly going under for better profits elsewhere.
Aloha oe

[grey_whiskers]

I’m not sure I did mention subscriptions...but there is an email list you can sign up for on the USDA food safety site.

You didn't, but the subject of how hard it is to monitor everything on your own as a layperson came up...

Thanks for the info on the links.

Cheers!

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“Won’t vacuuming suck up the ozone layer? You need to check with Al Gore on this :P”

Okay…so I’m peeking.

I could very well be sucking up the ozone layer. But the idea of having to talk/write to Goofy Gore is daunting. I read somewhere we are all finished in 5 years anyway…or is it in 2038? Oh no. That is when all the fish are going to disappear.

I’m doing enough damage in my own house. I have a shop-vac. I mention this because of its “aspirational” strength. But anyway, one day I wasn’t looking where the nozzle was resting, and I found I was scooping water out of the toilet.

I’ve also carelessly scooped up dried cat food out of the kitties’ dishes. And last week a ceiling lamp was busted as I was wheeling the hose and nozzle around.

[goldfinch]

Really! I won't eat Chinese chicken if it's labeled Imported from China.

But it won't be. American ranchers have been trying to get 'Country of Origin' labels on meat for many years. The big processing companies have made sure that doesn't happen.

[hedgetrimmer]

Does anyone out there understand how absurd our food safety laws in the face of this?

Our laws are supersceded by WTO rules and the UN's codex alimentarius. Our president and congress do not act because they hold international institutions above the will of American people.

[hedgetrimmer]

loopholes they already create

THEY didn't create it. They have been overrriden by an executive order in 1996 by Bill Clinton telling all branches of the federal government to harmonize with the Codex Alimentarius. They are hamstrung by a congress that keeps passing "free trade" agreements that bind us to WTO rules on phytosanitation in trade, and Codex Alimentarius.

[BigIsleGal]

Your shop-vac made in China?

[bvw]

Used to be that a certificate from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture acting as a certifying authority as to what constituted food of a given type was considered a badge of honor by food makers, and honored in regulatory requirement by other states.

That role of a State-based authority was subsumed by the Federal Government -- by the constitutionally loathsome overreach and by-centralism's-very-nature despotic centralization carried out by our well-pensioned and well-"connected" FDA bureaucrats of the upper reaches of G-level-dom.

Now the FDA has become a publicly undeniable utter failure of a watchdog. NOT one of its manifold areas of watch can any longer be trusted.

Thus there now exists the market opportunity for private certification solutions, and for honest businesses to market the value-added of scruples and honesty.

[Calpernia]

::sneaks over to the local DNC office with Gatún’s shop vac::