11/1/2008online:
11/1/2008
China's Melamine Woes
Likely to Get Worse
By Austin
Ramzy / Beijing Tuesday, Nov. 04, 2008
Source of Article: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1856168,00.html
First, a tainted product
emerges, killing some and sickening many more. Its origin is traced to China, where
a combination of greed and negligence allow the danger to slip into the food
chain. The government downplays or ignores the risks. When the problem becomes so big it
can't be denied, leadership orders inspections and promises to
punish wrongdoers. The new vigilance leads to other risky products being
identified, but officials suggest the problems aren't systemic — just the
work of a few bad eggs. The state tightens inspections on imports and finds a
few tainted products from overseas, as if to say, "See, everyone has
problems with food safety."
That, in brief, could describe the Chinese Product Safety
Scandal of 2008. As early as January, infants in China raised on Sanlu brand baby formula began developing kidney
problems, and parents raised complaints that were ignored by company and
local government officials. When the news finally broke in September, tests
found four infants had died and more than 60,000 were sickened from formula
tainted with melamine, a chemical used in plastics that can make the protein
content of milk — and many other food products — appear higher, and, when
consumed, can also cause kidney failure. Expanded inspections found traces of
melamine in milk powder from 22 of the country's 109 producers. The substance also showed up in
whole milk and dairy products ranging from White Rabbit candies to
chocolate used in sex toys in the U.K.
In late October, the scope of the scandal broadened when Hong Kong authorities announced that eggs imported from
the mainland also contained melamine, the result of tainted feed given to
chickens. Beijing
ordered widespread testing of animal feed, and
discovered 3,600 tons of contaminated product. The country's agriculture
minister, Sun Zhengcai, called the tainted eggs an
isolated problem. And the state press trumpeted news that sauces tainted with
toxic chemicals were imported from three Japanese factories.
Change some of the details above and you could have the
Chinese Product Safety Scandal of 2007. That round was touched off when the
death of more than 100 Panamanians was traced back to cough medicine tainted
with dietheylene glycol from China. Then
hundreds of pets in North America were
killed by eating food made from Chinese raw ingredients, also tainted with
melamine. As last year's scandal spread, problems were found with
Chinese-produced toys, tires, seafood and toothpaste. Even as the Beijing
took extreme steps to solve the problem, such as executing Zheng
Xiaoyu, the former head of the State
Food and Drug Administration, for accepting $850,000 in bribes from drug
companies, it aggressively pushed back against the global concern over its
exports. The Chinese embassy in Washington
declared that it was "unacceptable for some to launch groundless smear
attacks on China"
over food and drug safety problems.
A year later, that foreign criticism of China's food
safety problems doesn't seem so groundless. Now Chinese consumers are asking
why the government can't seem to get control of a problem like toxic foods,
or even a specific contaminant like melamine that has now become painfully
common. "Everyone has asked why this country that can send an astronaut
into space and have the most successful Olympic Games cannot provide safe
milk to its own children," says Dali Yang, director of the Center for
East Asian Studies at the University
of Chicago. While Yang
acknowledges that ethical failures in the Chinese dairy industry led to the
current crisis, the ultimate blame still falls on the government.
"Fundamentally it is an issue of government responsibility. In any
society you can hope everyone acts with good intentions, but you cannot trust
them to always do that," he says. " The
greatest irony is that with all the international criticism last year, they
knew there were problems. They did some spot checks, but the bureaucratic
system didn't pick this up as a significant issue."
It is the spotty nature of the enforcement mechanism that
is causing the biggest headaches. The discovery last year of melamine in
Chinese-made wheat gluten that was used in pet food was a signal that it had
permeated other links of the food chain, says Marion Nestle, a public health
professor at New York University and author of the recent book "Pet Food
Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine." Once melamine showed up in
pet food supplies, Nestle says, it was likely that it would appear in animal
feed and eventually human food. "You can't separate the food supplies of
animals, pets and people," she says. "That's an enormous warning
sign that if something wasn't done immediately to clean up the food safety problem, this would leak into the human food supply."
While some quick action was taken after last year's pet
food scandals, the response was narrowly focused on the exposed cases. The
country's top watchdog revoked the business licenses for two companies that
produced adulterated wheat gluten blamed for the death of thousands of pets
in North America and another that shipped
the diethylene glycol used in cough medicine that
killed more than 100 Panamanians."While China's State
Council announced new rules for stricter controls on food producers and
tougher punishments for violators, poor oversight allowed producers to
adulterate dairy products and animal feed with melamine until the latest
scandal broke in September. And that means that after the livestock feed
recall, the list of tainted products is likely to grow. "If animals are
fed this stuff, then they have it in their meat," says Nestle. While Beijing has announced
expanded testing procedures for the dairy industry, cracked down on melamine
producers and begun investigating animal feed, it has yet to announce similar
measures to test meat and eggs.
If there is one upside to the latest product scandals,
says Yang, it's that companies learn the risk of selling harmful products.
Not only could their businesses be destroyed, but they can face harsh
criminal punishments. "This takes more time. There are still a lot of
problems, but grudgingly progress is being made as different stakeholders are
learning the hard way." If those lessons don't sink in, then expect a
Chinese Product Safety Scandal of 2009.
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