| Submit your comments on this article |
| China-Japan-Koreas |
| Chinese government: All exports are safe |
| 2007-06-29 |
| Whew! Well, I guess we can stop checking now. I was worried there for a minute. EFL BEIJING (AP) — China insisted Thursday that its exports are safe, issuing a rare direct commentary as international fears over Chinese products spread. Wang Xinpei, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, said China "has paid great attention" to the issue, especially food products because it concerns people's health. CRACKDOWN: China shuts 180 food plants for tainted ingredients Hey, this was a link in the original article "It can be said that the quality of China's exports all are guaranteed," Wang told reporters at a regularly scheduled briefing. The statement was among Beijing's most public assertions of the safety of its exports since they came under scrutiny earlier this year with the deaths of dog and cats in North America blamed on Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine. Earlier this month, a spokesman for North Carolina's Department of Correction said Pacific brand toothpaste was distributed to prisoners who could not afford to buy a name brand at prison stores. The tubes were taken away after trace amounts of DEG was found in them. Not surprised, corrections is a big market for Chinese products because they buy the cheapest of everything with no regard for quality - they're selling to a captive audience. And let me guess, the tubes were taken away and no replacements offered. On Wednesday, three Japanese importers recalled millions of Chinese-made travel toothpaste sets, many sold to inns and hotels, after they were found to contain as much as 6.2% of diethylene glycol. Wang, the Commerce Ministry spokesman, said Chinese experts have already "explained the situation." He gave no details, although the country's quality watchdog has in past cited tests from 2000 that it said showed toothpaste containing less than 15.6% diethylene glycol was harmless to humans. That's the explanation? Great! We can all go home now. Also Wednesday, Beijing police raided a village where live pigs were force-fed wastewater to boost their weight before slaughter, state media reported. Plastic pipes had been forced down the pigs' throats and villagers had pumped each 220-pound pig with 44 pounds of wastewater, the Beijing Morning Post reported Thursday. You can't make this stuff up. Paperwork showed the pigs were headed for one of Beijing's main slaughterhouses and stamps on their ears indicated that they already had been through quarantine and inspection, the paper said. Suspects escaped during the raid and no arrests were made, it said. In other words, the authorities were in on the scam and had provided the inspection tags. The case underscored China's chaotic food safety situation, where manufacturers and distributors often use unapproved additives, falsify expiration dates or find other methods of cutting corners to eke out small profits. Yes, they make quite small extra profits by endangering people's safety. A few thousand RMB, that's all. |
| Posted by:gromky |
| #10 Want to hear the really scary part, some people actually think the Chinese government tells the truth, and that if they say they are actually fixing the problem, it will be okay. Sadly, these people work in the State and Commerce Department..... |
| Posted by: JustAboutEnough 2007-06-29 22:45 |
| #9 And I'm my own Aunt Fanny. Can I watch? |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-29 22:38 |
| #8 "Chinese government: All exports are safe" Yeah, sure, yewbetcha. And I'm my own Aunt Fanny. |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2007-06-29 17:09 |
| #7 I'm glad to see the mounting skepticism regarding anything China says or does. These scum would poison their own grandmother for a few extra yuan. So I tend to stick with kosher sausage meats (D/D/D all forbidden), and let the butcher grind up the chuck steak in front of me for hamburgers. Good policy, tw. Quality is your best defense. Prestigious companies have a lot more to lose in case of scandal. They tend to protect their brand name and its reputation a bit more vigorously. I hope everyone has noted the huge hamburger recall for e. coli. I have always maintained that the five pound chubs of pre-ground hamburger are pure poison. This also includes pre-formed frozen hamburger patties as well. The meat industry still regards hamburger as whatever they can sweep up off of the killing floor. Procopius2k's comments about D/D/D are on the money. While I don't watch my butcher grind the meat, I do make sure to purchase only meat ground at the store. Individual butchers are a lot more discriminating then a mechanical separator in some factory and the sides brought into a store are far less likely to be tainted. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-06-29 15:27 |
| #6 Love this Reuters headline: "China calls for reason as food safety fears mount " |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2007-06-29 11:36 |
| #5 Globalization = lying communist bastards sending us hog slop, poisoned toothpaste and defective tires and then aiming their missiles at us. Gotta love it. |
| Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-06-29 11:16 |
| #4 Wow. And they checked it all out and fixed it in in, what, a week? That's damn fine work. I feel so safe now... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-06-29 10:11 |
| #3 Procopius2k, my mother once made a pie chart of the ingredients of the common beef/pork hotdog, as permitted by the FDA. Even given that this was done for a grad school health ed. class in the mid-1970s, the results were disturbing. So I tend to stick with kosher sausage meats (D/D/D all forbidden), and let the butcher grind up the chuck steak in front of me for hamburgers. *shrug* |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-29 09:57 |
| #2 Yes, but do you know where your 'mystery meat' comes from? What is the ratio of federal meat inspectors to the amount of meat processed across the country everyday? Do you know the three D's of meat processing? [Dead, Dying, Diseased]. Do you know the 'parts per' authorized for fly and rodent feces permitted in food products? We assume a lot. The greatest guarantee to our food quality is not the government, but the communications media which will result in market blackballing of any company 'caught' in the act. How many don't get caught? For us, it's a lot like the possibility of getting struck by lightning. Remote, but it does happen routinely to someone. It's just that if you're in China, you're always walking around with a lightning rod in your hand. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-06-29 09:26 |
| #1 I s'pose I should be glad my friends are moving back from Beijing this week. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-06-29 08:38 |