"Achievement" with Chinese Characteristics: Chinese Exported Food Put
Fear into Market

China Food Fears Go From Pets To People

By Ariana Eunjung Cha
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, April 25, 2007; A01

SHANGHAI -- Something was wrong with the babies. The villagers noticed
their heads were growing abnormally large while the rest of their bodies
were skin and bones. By the time Chinese authorities discovered the
culprit -- severe malnutrition from fake milk powder -- 13 had died.

The scandal, which unfolded three years ago after hundreds of babies
fell ill in an eastern Chinese province, became the defining symbol of a
broad problem in China's economy. Quality control and product-safety
regulation are so poor in this country that people cannot trust the
goods on store shelves.

Until now, the problem has not received much attention outside of China.
In recent weeks, however, consumers everywhere have been learning about
China's safety crisis. Tainted ingredients that originated here made
their way into pet food that has sickened and killed animals around the
world.

Chinese authorities acknowledge the safety problem and have promised
repeatedly to fix it, but the disasters keep coming. Tang Yanli, 45,
grand-aunt of a baby who became sick because of the fake milk but
eventually recovered, said that even though she now pays more to buy
national brands, she remains suspicious.

"I don't trust the food I eat," she said. "I don't know which products
are good, which are bad."

With China playing an ever-larger role in supplying food, medicine and
animal feed to other countries, recognition of the hazards has not kept up.

By value, China is the world's No. 1 exporter of fruits and vegetables,
and a major exporter of other food and food products, which vary widely,
from apple juice to sausage casings and garlic. China's agricultural
exports to the United States surged to $2.26 billion last year,
according to U.S. figures -- more than 20 times the $133 million of 1980.

China has been especially poor at meeting international standards. The
United States subjects only a small fraction of its food imports to
close inspection, but each month rejects about 200 shipments from China,
mostly because of concerns about pesticides and antibiotics and about
misleading labeling. In February, border inspectors for the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration blocked peas tainted by pesticides, dried white
plums containing banned additives, pepper contaminated with salmonella
and frozen crawfish that were filthy.

Since 2000, some countries have temporarily banned whole categories of
Chinese imports. The European Union stopped shipments of shrimp because
of banned antibiotics. Japan blocked tea and spinach, citing excessive
antibiotic residue. And South Korea banned fermented cabbage after
finding parasites in some shipments.

As globalization of the food supply progresses, "the food gets more
anonymous and gradually you get into a situation where you don't know
where exactly it came from and you get more vulnerable to poor quality,"
said Michiel Keyzer, director of the Centre for World Food Studies at
Vrije University in Amsterdam, who researches China's exports to the
European Union.

Chinese authorities, while conceding the country has many safety
problems, have claimed other countries' assessments of products are
sometimes "not accurate" and have implied the bans may be politically
motivated, aimed at protecting domestic companies that compete with
Chinese businesses.

China's State Food and Drug Administration, Ministry of Health and
Ministry of Agriculture, which along with other government agencies
share responsibility for monitoring food and drug safety, this week
declined to answer written questions faxed to them.

In the United States, more than 100 brands of pet food have been
recalled since March 16 because of a spike in animal deaths, generally
from kidney failure. The recall, one of the largest ever, included
mass-market brands sold in stores such as Safeway and Wal-Mart, as well
as pricey brands sold by veterinarians and specialty retailers.

Why the food is killing pets remains a focus of investigation, but the
FDA and a manufacturer in South Africa have found that several bulk
ingredients shipped from China, including wheat gluten and rice-protein
concentrate, were contaminated with an industrial chemical called melamine.

Last week, concern about animal safety transformed into a concern about
risk to people. California state officials said melamine had been found
in livestock feed at a hog and could pose a "minimal" health risk to
people who ate pork from there. Wheat gluten is also commonly used in
breads, cereals and other foods for human consumption, but contamination
has not been found in such U.S. products.

The investigations are unearthing details of the food chain that were
previously a mystery to most Americans, including the international
dealings that determine how ingredients make their way into the food
supply. U.S. companies are under relentless pressure to cut costs, in
part from consumers who demand low prices, and obtaining cheap
ingredients from China has become an important strategy for many of them.

In China, meanwhile, the government has found that companies have cut
corners in virtually every aspect of food production and packaging,
including improper use of fertilizer, unsanitary packing and poor
refrigeration of dairy products.

William O'Brien, president of Hami Food of Beijing, which transports
food for the McDonald's restaurant chain and other multinational
companies in China, said in some of his competitors' operations,
"chilled and frozen products very often come in taxi cabs or in vans --
not under properly controlled conditions. That is something that people
should worry about."

Not surprisingly, food-related poisonings are a common occurrence.

Last year, farmers raising duck eggs were found to have used a red dye
so the yolks would look reddish instead of yellow, fetching a higher
price. The dye turned out to be a cancer-causing substance not approved
for human consumption. In Shanghai, 300 people were poisoned by a
chemical additive in pork.

The Chinese government has undertaken a major overhaul of its monitoring
system by dispatching state inspectors to every province, launching spot
inspections at supermarkets, and firing a number of corrupt officials.

"After these incidents, Chinese consumers began to ask, 'What can we
eat?' They no longer had any confidence in the safety of their food,"
said Hu Dinghuan, a food-safety expert at the Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences, a think tank linked to the Chinese government.

Henk Bekedam, the World Health Organization representative in China,
said the situation is complicated by poor coordination among 17
government agencies involved in food safety.

In the United States and Europe, food is identified by lot numbers that
can often help authorities pinpoint problems. And increasingly, food
producers in developed countries are under pressure to keep records that
allow the tracing of problem ingredients to individual farms.

China has a long way to go to achieve this type of modern system, said
Hu, a researcher at the Institute of Agricultural Economics and
Development who is working on a national pilot program to encourage
farmers to keep better records.

China has more than 200 million farmers working one- to two-acre plots.
Many of them earn a meager living, sometimes less than $200 a year.
Studies have found they often have little understanding of correct
chemical or antibiotic use.

The marketing of food and food-related goods in China is also dominated
by small-time traders. Small farmers typically take their food to
wholesale markets, get cash for their wares but do not exchange
documentation with buyers.

Their products are mixed with those of other small farmers, making the
source untraceable. "The person who is ultimately buying knows nothing
about where it originated," Hami Food's O'Brien said.

In response to the pet deaths in the United States, China is carrying
out a nationwide inspection of wheat gluten, but its government has
refuted allegations that Chinese companies are responsible for the deaths.

Wheat gluten has industrial uses and China has suggested the shipments
that made their way into pet food might never have been intended for
that purpose. China's General Administration of Quality Supervision,
Inspection and Quarantine said China has never sent wheat gluten abroad
for use as a pet-food ingredient. That has raised the question of
whether companies that bought the gluten are guilty of misusing it.

On the quarantine authorities' Web site on April 13, an unnamed official
said: "If a company used industrial wheat protein as a pet food
ingredient and this led to the death of pets, that company should accept
the corresponding responsibility."

Investigators from the United States and China are still trying to
determine how the contaminated wheat gluten got into pet food.

The FDA said it had traced the ingredient to Xuzhou Anying Biologic
Technology Development, near Shanghai. The company has said, however,
that it is a middleman and got the wheat gluten from another source.

Reached by phone this week, Xuzhou's general manager, Mao Lijun,
declined to comment further about the pet food probe, but said the
company "is cooperating with the government investigation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042402539.html...

Washington Post