BEIJING: A wave of tainted-food scares has renewed fears in China over continued product-safety problems despite a government promise to clean up the food industry following a deadly 2008 milk scandal.
Tainted pork, toxic milk, dyed buns and other dodgy foods have surfaced in recent weeks, sickening consumers and highlighting the government's apparent inability to oversee China's huge and under-regulated food industry.
The litany of stomach-turning headlines has caused officials to scramble to contain the damage and sparked an anguished lament last week from Premier Wen Jiabao about unscrupulous food producers.
"These virulent food-safety incidents have revealed a grave situation of dishonesty and moral degradation," Wen Jiabao said in a speech to government officials.
"Without high-quality citizens or ethical strength, China cannot be a respectable economy or power in a real sense," he said in published remarks.
Recent scandals have included pork found on the market so loaded with bacteria that it glowed in the dark, according to a state press report.
Authorities have discovered bean sprouts laced with cancer-causing nitrates, steamed buns with banned chemical preservatives, and rice laced with heavy metals, to name just a few.
China pledged to clean up the food industry after milk products tainted with the industrial chemical melamine -- added to give the appearance of high protein content -- killed at least six babies and sickened 300,000 others in 2008.
With food safety regularly ranked as a top public concern, China also passed a 2009 Food Safety Law amid much fanfare.
But the recent scandals prompted the health ministry on Monday to launch a crackdown on 151 banned food additives, while the central government vowed to issue new food safety rules this year -- an apparent admission that the Food Safety Law and other measures had failed.
"The causes of food safety problems in China are many," Bao Chengsheng, a professor at the Shanghai University of Political Science and Law told AFP.
"One aspect is that China's legal system is incomplete. A lot of regulations are unclear... causing legal loopholes."
He added that underfunded regulators struggle to keep tabs on China's countless small food producers and retailers, setting the stage for lax oversight and corruption.
For example, "pig brokers" often bribe food safety inspectors to turn a blind eye to tainted meat, the state-controlled Global Times said.
Such practices have fuelled a market for the carcasses of pigs that have died from disease and whose meat should be destroyed but instead finds its way into the food chain, the paper said.
Tainted meat from the carcasses of between 20 to 30 million diseased pigs enters Chinese markets each year, it said, citing experts.
Culpable officials typically receive slap-on-the-wrist administrative penalties," it quoted Sang Liwei, a lawyer who helped draft the Food Safety Law, as saying.
"That is not enough. Their criminal liabilities should be investigated too," he said.
Ninety-one villagers in central China's Hunan province were hospitalised last weekend with food poisoning after eating pork believed to have been tainted with clenbuterol, an additive that makes meat leaner, reports said.
A total of 286 villagers had to seek treatment.
Despite declaring that all melamine-laced dairy products had been confiscated or destroyed, they have repeatedly surfaced on the market.
In the latest discovery, authorities in Chongqing city in China's southwest confiscated 26 tonnes of melamine-tainted milk powder, the Global Times said.
The scandals have left beleaguered consumers not knowing whom to trust, Beijing office worker Zhang Lihua said.
"If the police don't crack down on profit-driven businessmen who have lost their morality, they will become even bolder and produce even more poisonous food," she told AFP.
"It has become so bad that no one knows what foods are safe and which ones are poisonous."
Source: CNA online
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Tainted bean sprouts latest food scare in China
BEIJING - CHINESE state media say authorities in a north-eastern city have found bean sprouts tainted with banned food additives to make them grow faster and look shinier.
The Legal Daily newspaper said in a report on Wednesday that Shenyang police have detained 12 people. It says police have seized 40,000kg of bean sprouts that were treated with the chemical compounds sodium nitrite and urea, as well as antibiotics and a plant hormone called 6-benzyladenine.
Sodium nitrite hinders bacteria growth in food but can be toxic for humans and is carcinogenic.
China has battled a series of food safety scandals in recent years. -- AP
Source: ST Online
The Legal Daily newspaper said in a report on Wednesday that Shenyang police have detained 12 people. It says police have seized 40,000kg of bean sprouts that were treated with the chemical compounds sodium nitrite and urea, as well as antibiotics and a plant hormone called 6-benzyladenine.
Sodium nitrite hinders bacteria growth in food but can be toxic for humans and is carcinogenic.
China has battled a series of food safety scandals in recent years. -- AP
Source: ST Online
Friday, March 25, 2011
Chinese man left in a pickle after $5,000 salt spree
BEIJING - A CHINESE man who bought 6.5 tonnes of salt, hoping to profit from panic buying spurred by fears of radiation from Japan, is now stuck with US$4,000 (S$5,041) worth of the condiment, state media reported on Friday.
The man, surnamed Guo, bought the salt in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, when rumours spread across China last week that the iodine in salt could help ward off radiation sickness, the China Daily reported on Friday.
Salt prices jumped on the rumours, and, acting on a tip that there would be a supply shortage lasting at least six months, Mr Guo bough 260 bags of salt, which he took back to his apartment in three trucks.
A few days later, the Chinese government urged consumers to stop the panic buying, saying residents will not be exposed to radiation from Japan's quake-damaged nuclear plant, causing a sharp drop in the price of salt. .
Mr Guo is now stuck with the salt, which the newspaper said takes up more than half his apartment and had cost him 27,000 yuan (S$5 189) to buy and transport.
The newspaper said Mr Guo can't resell the goods, because he has no receipt and also because he was told it was illegal to do so. He also can't take it to another province, as the government strictly controls salt transport. -- REUTERS
Source: ST Online
The man, surnamed Guo, bought the salt in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, when rumours spread across China last week that the iodine in salt could help ward off radiation sickness, the China Daily reported on Friday.
Salt prices jumped on the rumours, and, acting on a tip that there would be a supply shortage lasting at least six months, Mr Guo bough 260 bags of salt, which he took back to his apartment in three trucks.
A few days later, the Chinese government urged consumers to stop the panic buying, saying residents will not be exposed to radiation from Japan's quake-damaged nuclear plant, causing a sharp drop in the price of salt. .
Mr Guo is now stuck with the salt, which the newspaper said takes up more than half his apartment and had cost him 27,000 yuan (S$5 189) to buy and transport.
The newspaper said Mr Guo can't resell the goods, because he has no receipt and also because he was told it was illegal to do so. He also can't take it to another province, as the government strictly controls salt transport. -- REUTERS
Source: ST Online
Friday, March 18, 2011
Tainted pork is latest food scandal to hit China
SHANGHAI — China has been hit by a fresh food scandal after the country's largest meat processor was forced to apologise when an illegal additive was reportedly found in some of its pork products.
Henan Shuanghui Investment and Development Co said it had halted operations at one of its subsidiaries while authorities investigate the case, in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Wednesday, where it is listed.
In a separate statement dated Wednesday its parent Shuanghui Group expressed a "deep apology for the incident in the unit, which had troubled consumers".
The news follows the 2008 milk scandal in which a chemical was found to have been added to watered-down milk, leading to the deaths of several babies and left thousands sick.
Products marketed under Shuanghui Group's Shineway brand were produced from pigs that were fed clenbuterol, an additive that can speed up muscle building and fat burning to produce leaner pork, the reports said.
The additive, known among farmers as "lean meat powder", is banned in China because if eaten by humans it can lead to dizziness, heart palpitations and profuse sweating, the reports said.
The listed company said its shares were suspended Wednesday until official findings were released "to avoid major impact on the company's stock price".
"If it spreads to other producers, it will send shockwaves across the nation's meat industry, similar to the 2008 milk scandal," Zhao Yong, an industry analyst with Haitong Securities, told the Global Times newspaper on Thursday.
As supermarkets pulled Shineway products from their shelves, the China Meat Association tried play down the possibility that tainted pork was widespread.
"It's only an isolated case and was only found in one Shuanghui company. It won't bring destructive damage to either the industry or Shuanghui," the industry association's spokesman, He Zhonghua, told the Global Times.
China reported 18 outbreaks of food-related clenbuterol poisoning between 1998 and 2007, according to a report on the Shanghai Food Safety website. One person died and more than 1,700 others fell ill, the website said.
The latest batch of tainted pork products was first reported by state broadcaster China Central Television earlier this week.
China's dairy industry still has yet to fully recover from the loss of trust caused by the 2008 milk scandal where melamine, normally used to make plastics, was added to watered-down milk to make it seem higher in protein.
Twenty-two dairy producers were found to have sold products laced with melamine that killed at least six babies and left nearly 300,000 others ill.
Source: AFP
Henan Shuanghui Investment and Development Co said it had halted operations at one of its subsidiaries while authorities investigate the case, in a statement to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Wednesday, where it is listed.
In a separate statement dated Wednesday its parent Shuanghui Group expressed a "deep apology for the incident in the unit, which had troubled consumers".
The news follows the 2008 milk scandal in which a chemical was found to have been added to watered-down milk, leading to the deaths of several babies and left thousands sick.
Products marketed under Shuanghui Group's Shineway brand were produced from pigs that were fed clenbuterol, an additive that can speed up muscle building and fat burning to produce leaner pork, the reports said.
The additive, known among farmers as "lean meat powder", is banned in China because if eaten by humans it can lead to dizziness, heart palpitations and profuse sweating, the reports said.
The listed company said its shares were suspended Wednesday until official findings were released "to avoid major impact on the company's stock price".
"If it spreads to other producers, it will send shockwaves across the nation's meat industry, similar to the 2008 milk scandal," Zhao Yong, an industry analyst with Haitong Securities, told the Global Times newspaper on Thursday.
As supermarkets pulled Shineway products from their shelves, the China Meat Association tried play down the possibility that tainted pork was widespread.
"It's only an isolated case and was only found in one Shuanghui company. It won't bring destructive damage to either the industry or Shuanghui," the industry association's spokesman, He Zhonghua, told the Global Times.
China reported 18 outbreaks of food-related clenbuterol poisoning between 1998 and 2007, according to a report on the Shanghai Food Safety website. One person died and more than 1,700 others fell ill, the website said.
The latest batch of tainted pork products was first reported by state broadcaster China Central Television earlier this week.
China's dairy industry still has yet to fully recover from the loss of trust caused by the 2008 milk scandal where melamine, normally used to make plastics, was added to watered-down milk to make it seem higher in protein.
Twenty-two dairy producers were found to have sold products laced with melamine that killed at least six babies and left nearly 300,000 others ill.
Source: AFP
Friday, March 11, 2011
Sperm donation most popular job among Chinese students
STUDENT sperm donation has drawn controversy in China and debate has been raised as to whether it is moral to do so.
College students make up about 90 per cent of sperm donors in China, Chinese news reports said on Thursday. An official at a sperm bank in Guangdong, southern part of the South China Sea, said that about 2,000 students donated sperm last year, making up 95 per cent of all donors.
'It is hard to expect healthy sperm from stressed-out office workers. College students fulfill the qualification of sperm donors, which is young and healthy,' said the official.
For this reason, sperm banks prefer young and healthy college students and the number of students willing to donate sperm is on the rise.
Sperm donors can earn about 3,000-4,000 yuan ($580 to $773). This is a relatively large amount of money for college students, and more than Chinese farmers can make a month. The Guangdong sperm bank selects donors through medical checkups. Those who pass the medical test get paid 300 yuan for each donation. Usually, a person donates 10 samples, receiving about 3,000 yuan.
'It is hard to make more than 1,000 yuan even if you work intensely all day, but if you donate your sperm, you can get a large sum of money easily,' said one student who has donated. Another student said it was a meaningful job since it helped reproductively challenged families. -- KOREA HERALD/ANN
source: ST online
College students make up about 90 per cent of sperm donors in China, Chinese news reports said on Thursday. An official at a sperm bank in Guangdong, southern part of the South China Sea, said that about 2,000 students donated sperm last year, making up 95 per cent of all donors.
'It is hard to expect healthy sperm from stressed-out office workers. College students fulfill the qualification of sperm donors, which is young and healthy,' said the official.
For this reason, sperm banks prefer young and healthy college students and the number of students willing to donate sperm is on the rise.
Sperm donors can earn about 3,000-4,000 yuan ($580 to $773). This is a relatively large amount of money for college students, and more than Chinese farmers can make a month. The Guangdong sperm bank selects donors through medical checkups. Those who pass the medical test get paid 300 yuan for each donation. Usually, a person donates 10 samples, receiving about 3,000 yuan.
'It is hard to make more than 1,000 yuan even if you work intensely all day, but if you donate your sperm, you can get a large sum of money easily,' said one student who has donated. Another student said it was a meaningful job since it helped reproductively challenged families. -- KOREA HERALD/ANN
source: ST online
Friday, February 18, 2011
China on alert for leather protein in milk supply
BEIJING - CHINESE state media say the government will spot check the country's fresh milk supplies for the industrial chemical melamine and another toxic substance extracted from leather scraps.
Both of the substances - melamine and leather-hydrolysed protein - are used in watered-down milk to make it appear to have normal amounts of protein.
The China Daily newspaper reported on Friday that the Agriculture Ministry warned milk producers recently that it will carry out 6,450 spot checks on fresh milk this year.
The tests will look for trace amounts of melamine, the chemical found to be widely used in Chinese dairy products in 2008 and blamed for killing six children and sickening more than 300,000.
The paper says 30 per cent of the checks will also look for leather-hydrolysed protein. -- AP
Source: ST Online
Both of the substances - melamine and leather-hydrolysed protein - are used in watered-down milk to make it appear to have normal amounts of protein.
The China Daily newspaper reported on Friday that the Agriculture Ministry warned milk producers recently that it will carry out 6,450 spot checks on fresh milk this year.
The tests will look for trace amounts of melamine, the chemical found to be widely used in Chinese dairy products in 2008 and blamed for killing six children and sickening more than 300,000.
The paper says 30 per cent of the checks will also look for leather-hydrolysed protein. -- AP
Source: ST Online
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
China rice laced with heavy metals from pollution
BEIJING - UP TO 10 per cent of rice grown in China is contaminated with harmful heavy metals stemming from pollution linked to the nation's rapid industrialisation, a report said.
This week's edition of the New Century magazine cited studies showing that large amounts of Chinese rice have been tainted with heavy metals like cadmium for years but that little has been done to highlight the dangers.
'During China's fast-paced industrialisation, activities such as mining have sprung up everywhere, releasing into the environment chemical elements like cadmium, arsenic, mercury and other harmful heavy metals,' the report said.
'These harmful heavy metals have spread through the air and water, polluting a rather large area of China's land ... a complete chain of food contamination has existed for years.'
The report cited academic studies since 2007 focussing on several rural villages in southern China near mines and industrial areas where health problems such as bone diseases have emerged, mostly among the elderly.
Of the major grains, rice has the strongest tendency to absorb cadmium, which often seeps into water used for irrigation near mines, especially lead, tin and copper mines, the report said. -- AFP
source: ST Online
This week's edition of the New Century magazine cited studies showing that large amounts of Chinese rice have been tainted with heavy metals like cadmium for years but that little has been done to highlight the dangers.
'During China's fast-paced industrialisation, activities such as mining have sprung up everywhere, releasing into the environment chemical elements like cadmium, arsenic, mercury and other harmful heavy metals,' the report said.
'These harmful heavy metals have spread through the air and water, polluting a rather large area of China's land ... a complete chain of food contamination has existed for years.'
The report cited academic studies since 2007 focussing on several rural villages in southern China near mines and industrial areas where health problems such as bone diseases have emerged, mostly among the elderly.
Of the major grains, rice has the strongest tendency to absorb cadmium, which often seeps into water used for irrigation near mines, especially lead, tin and copper mines, the report said. -- AFP
source: ST Online
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