The Chinese Food and Drug Administration has announced a public consultation on a revised draft of its new food safety law. Reportedly a high-priority initiative motivated by recent food safety scandals, the draft amendment includes the following major changes: (i) clarification of government duties; (ii) increased regulatory obligations for food manufacturers and distributors; (iii) enhanced controls over health foods, health products, infant formula, and imported foods; and (iv) increased penalties for non-compliance. Comments will be accepted until November 29, 2013. See U.S-China Health Products Association News Release, October 29, 2013; ChemLinked.com, November 1, 2013. Issue 504
Tag Archives China
According to a news source, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) personnel have experienced significant delays in obtaining visas from China to staff food and drug inspection offices in that country. One staff member reportedly withdrew his application after waiting nine months for approval to work in China. The delays are seen as a setback for the agency’s efforts to improve supply chain safety; FDA planned to use $10 million in additional appropriations to increase its food inspection staff from two to nine and its drug inspection unit from just one to 11. FDA currently has three offices in the country—in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou—staffed with eight U.S. civil servants and five Chinese nationals. An FDA spokesperson said, “We believe that timely issuance of visas for FDA staff will be beneficial to both the U.S. and China, and that it’s in China’s best interest to issue these visas and move…
A Florida-based import-export company has filed for Chapter 7 protection in bankruptcy court, listing more than $204 million in liabilities from litigation over its role in the import from China of powdered milk contaminated with melamine. In re Exim Brickell, LLC, No. 13-28502 (U.S. Bankruptcy Ct., S.D. Fla., filed August 3, 2013). Exim Brickell, LLC declared $300 in office furniture as its only asset. According to a news source, the 2008 tainted Chinese milk scandal, which affected hundreds of thousands of children in that country and killed six, resulted n verdicts and legal fees against the company as a result of litigation involving a Venezuelan company that recently won an appeal in their breach of contract dispute. See Law360, August 7, 2013. In a related development, a new milk contamination scandal has developed in China over whey protein concentrate potentially contaminated with the C. botulinum bacterium. The dairy farm near…
A recently published study involving transgenic rice has reportedly drawn criticism from Greenpeace China, which has accused U.S. researchers of using Chinese children “as guinea pigs in [a] genetically engineered ‘Golden Rice’ trial.” According to media sources, the advocacy group has cited a joint Chinese-U.S. study appearing in the August 2012 edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition as evidence that scientists sidestepped authorities by allegedly feeding vitamin-enriched Golden Rice to 24 children without the required approvals. “It was actually back in 2008 that we first heard of this experiment and immediately informed the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture,” opined a August 31, 2012, Greenpeace China blog post that has since sparked a government investigation into the trial. “The Ministry came back and assured us no Golden Rice had been imported and the trial had been stopped—something that unfortunately appears not to be the case.” The study in question apparently examined…
Wired magazine’s “Superbug” blogger Maryn McKenna recently published an article questioning China’s food safety record after reports surfaced that 11 people from one Xinjiang province village died “and anywhere from 120 to 140 were sickened” by vinegar contaminated with ethylene glycol. According to McKenna, “The vinegar had been stored in barrels that previously contained antifreeze,” although investigators have not yet determined “whether the vinegar was put in the barrels out of ignorance, making it a problem of accidental contamination, or deliberately by an unscrupulous producer seeking to cut corners.” In either case, McKenna warns, the scandal closely follows allegations that “aged” vinegar from Shanxi province is “dosed with industrial acid in order to cut fermentation time and turn out batches faster.” It also adds to a growing roster of China’s food safety problems that purportedly include “the meat that glowed in the dark; the tainted buns; the exploding watermelons; the…
“A third or more of all the honey consumed in the U.S. is likely to have been smuggled in from China and may be tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals,” writes reporter Andrew Schneider in an August 15, 2011, Food Safety News article investigating the U.S. honey trade. Building on earlier media stories such as a January 5, 2011, Globe and Mail exposé covered in Issue 377 of this Update, the latest feature includes U.S. Customs import data indicating, for example, that the United States “imported 208 million pounds of honey over the past 18 months,” with almost 60 percent or 123 million pounds coming “from Asian countries—traditional laundering points for Chinese honey,” and “45 million pounds from India alone.” “This should be a red flag to FDA [the Food and Drug Administration] and the federal investigators. India doesn’t have anywhere near the capacity—enough bees—to produce 45 million pounds…
According to a news source, Chinese officials have arrested about 2,000 people and shut down almost 5,000 food production facilities since April 2011, in an effort to stop the industry’s use of illegal food additives. The initiative apparently followed scandals involving pork so full of bacteria that it allegedly glowed in the dark and milk laced with melamine that led to the deaths of least six infants and sickened more than 300,000 in 2008. The Chinese government claims that nearly 6 million food businesses have been inspected and “underground” food production and storage sites destroyed. See Agence France Presse, August 4, 2011.
Food & Water Watch has issued a report cautioning that potentially unsafe food from China may likely provide the next food safety scare in the United States. Titled “A Decade of Dangerous Food Imports from China,” the report describes “where [Chinese] food manufacturers are legendary for cutting corners, substituting dangerous ingredients, and compromising safety in order to boost sales.” Noting that U.S. food safety oversight has “not remotely” kept pace with China’s food exports that have tripled over the past decade, the report recommends (i) “revisiting the current trade agenda to make public health, environmental standards and consumer safety the highest priorities”; (ii) “removing agriculture from the WTO” (World Trade Organization), which “has been a failure for U.S. farmers and has encouraged companies to offshore food manufacturing to places like China with low wages and weak regulatory standards, putting consumers around the world at risk”; (iii) “restarting the assessment of…
Watermelons have reportedly been bursting on farms in eastern China during recent wet weather, a phenomenon that state media attribute to the growth chemical forchlorfenuron. Jumping into a burgeoning watermelon market, approximately 20 first-time users of the chemical reportedly lost up to 115 acres after applying it too late in the season on an inappropriate variety of melon. Dubbed the “exploding melon” because of its tendency to split, most of the ruined fruit was apparently fed to fish and pigs. Legal in the United States on kiwi and grapes and allowed in China in general, forchlorfenuron is safe when used properly, according to a horticulture professor quoted by a news source. See Associated Press, May 17, 2011.
Chinese authorities have reportedly seized more than 25 tons of melamine-tainted milk powder from Chongqing-based Jixida Food Co. Ltd., detaining three suspects on allegations that the company planned to use the adulterated ingredient in its ice cream. Found in a warehouse, the contaminated stock evidently included some powder purchased approximately one year ago, although officials claimed that none had been used in ice cream production. According to media sources, investigators have traced the milk powder to a trading company in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and a dairy in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The arrests were apparently part of a 100-day food safety campaign organized by the Chongqing police. In 2008, China faced a widespread scandal involving melamine-tainted milk and infant formula that affected an estimated 300,000 people. See The Associated Press and Global Times, April 27, 2011.
