"The Chinese Government and authorities are unable to monitor, supervise or administer and regulate food and medicine production", says Chris Jones. "They cannot honestly attest that their food and medicine exports are safe."
In 2010, I spent six months in China living amongst poor Chinese. It is that raw experience that fuelled my interest in Chinese products intended for human consumption. It also gave me, through firsthand experience with Chinese Authorities, an insight into their attitudes toward the Chinese and world populations, generally.
I describe the Chinese Government position this way:
”The water in our Chinese bathtub is only a little dirty. You can use the clean water for your bath.”
When you accept and adapt to that way of thinking you will be able to deal with Chinese authorities but, perhaps, never fully understand them. I have a great love and admiration for ordinary Chinese and wish them a better life.
Australian food product labelling has been under the spotlight many times. Recently I examined the label on a drink bottle, Goulburn Valley Quencher, and the label advised that the contents came from local and imported sources. The ratio of imported to local ingredients was not shown and nor was the origin of the imported product. A consumer, considering purchase of the product must rely on the Producer that the product is safe for consumption. With little information for consumers to consider, most will accept that it is safe because the product is available to buy and assumed to meet Australian Food Standards. The risk is our possibly naïve acceptance that our Food Standards are enforced.
If I wander away from Chinese food and medicines, as I do now, it is to give you an insight into the Chinese Administration attitude. The United States Embassy in Beijing regularly released air pollution information to the city. The Chinese authorities refuted the accuracy of the American data and advised the city residents that the air was not as polluted as the Americans would have them believe. Many Chinese residents, visually observing the apparent poor air quality, preferred the American data and were unconvinced that the official Chinese information was accurate. The American information indicated that daily air pollution levels was often hazardous to health. Their monitoring equipment measured much smaller airborne molecules than those measured by the Chinese monitors and gave rise to their higher readings. China defended its flawed monitoring for a considerable period before switching to more accurate testing equipment. This is a clear, recent and well publicised example of the Chinese denial of reliable and independent information. Any information coming out of China not confirmed by reliable and independent sources could be intentional misinformation. I make no apology to the Chinese administration for that statement.
Chinese authorities concede that 10 per cent of their farming land is contaminated by heavy metals. Mindful of the Chinese bathtub water, I do not accept that that information is accurate, reliable or honest. Their admission is to dispel concerns that there may be widespread pollution by conceding a small percentage of affected land. I defend my position based on the following reasoning:
Chinese authorities have not comprehensively measured pollution of all agricultural land.
Their test and measuring equipment is inadequate and their techniques are flawed.
They are dishonest, with the intention of misinforming their population to minimise the risk of losing their export markets.
There have been no large scale independent and reliable tests for pollutants, or investigation into the chemicals and hormones use by Chinese producers.
Whose responsibility is it to ensure that exported Chinese garlic is not grown in contaminated soils? That the soya sauce we use is not contaminated. Whose responsibility is it to ensure that the food we choose to eat and the products that we have not chosen (that is, has been selected by our restaurants, hospitals, corporations in packaged and processed foods, etc.) is safe for consumption? I have no confidence in China’s fault-ridden practices and do not accept any of their contradictory assurances.
It is a matter of public record that Chinese authorities are unable to monitor and control their farming practices. More privileged citizens have moved to their own food production to ensure access to “clean” products. Many ordinary Chinese have no access to safe products, clean rivers and air, Recently, the pollution in one river drove citizens to panic buy bottled water while Chinese authorities dumped chemical cleansers into the river to clear the pollution leaked from a nearby mine.
It is Chinese Government practice to suppress information critical of China, to deny access to independent and reliable investigators and to misinform enquirers. As with the USA Beijing Embassy air pollution data, China will malign any information obtained – no matter how reputable and independent – that is not supportive of China. The USA information forced China to lift its game, albeit limited to the monitoring of air pollution in the Beijing locality.
The Chinese Government and authorities are unable to monitor, supervise or administer and regulate food and medicine production. They cannot honestly attest that their food and medicine exports are safe. The most cost effective choice for all Governments, in exercising its duty of care for its citizens, is to ban import of all Chinese food products and medicines. The Australian Government is being urged to take that stand in the national interest. The health of Australian citizens should not be compromised.
Around the time of the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China and the world was rocked by the tainted milk scandal that caused deaths and severe illness to huge numbers of children. The Chinese Authorities suppressed news of the scandal until after the Olympics and gaoled a woman for warning people, over the Internet, of the danger. The potential risk to foreign infants, at that time, was unknown.
In China in 2010, I ate yoghurt intended for the Chinese Army but had to take greater risks with milk.
An Australian Company, Warrnambool Cheese and Butter, exported some milk to China in 2011. Personal contacts in China have indicated that Australian milk would be sought after there. A Timearticle writes that milk, tainted with hormones, may have caused premature breast growth in infants.
An article in The Guardian UK, (17th May 2011 edition) reports:
Fields of watermelons exploded when he and other agricultural workers in eastern China mistakenly applied forchlorfenuron, a growth accelerator. The incident has become a focus of a Chinese media drive to expose the lax farming practices, shortcuts and excessive use of fertiliser behind a rash of food safety scandals.
It follows discoveries of the heavy metal cadmium in rice, toxic melamine in milk, arsenic in soy sauce, bleach in mushrooms, and the detergent borax in pork, added to make it resemble beef.
Many farmers grow their own food separately from the chemically raised crops they sell. "I feel there is nothing safe I can eat now because people are in too much of a hurry to make money," said Huang Zhanliang, a farmer in Hebei. …… the People's Daily website has run stories of human birth control chemicals being used on cucumber plants in Xian, China Daily has reported Sichuan peppers releasing red dye in water, and the Sina news portal revealed that barite powder had been injected into chickens in Guizhou to increase their weight.
The question remains, “HOW SAFE FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION IS IMPORTED CHINESE FOOD PRODUCT?”
How confident are you now that your health is not being compromised every time you eat or drink. If you share my concern, keep this article circulating throughout the World and insist that Governments impose a ban on Chinese products intended for human (and pet) consumption. It is the only sure way to protect the population and pets from unsafe products grown or manufactured in China.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China Soy sauce made from human hair – Source Wikipedia . Stories began circulating in the press about cheap soy sauces made from human hair. These sauces were manufactured in China using a chemical amino acid extraction process similar to artificially hydrolyzed soy sauces and then quietly exported to other countries. An investigative report that aired on Chinese television exposed the unsanitary and potentially contaminated sources of the hair:
“When asking how the amino acid syrup (or powder) was generated, the manufacturer replied that the powder was generated from human hair. Because the human hair was gathered from salon, barbershop and hospitals around the country, it was unhygienic and mixed with condom, used hospital cottons, used menstrual cycle pad, used syringe, etc.
In response, the Chinese government banned production of soy sauces made from hair. Other carcinogens remain,
Incidences :
A survey of soy sauces and similar products available in the UK was carried out by the Joint Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food/Department of Health Food Safety and Standards Group (JFSSG) in 2000 and reported more than half of the samples collected from retail outlets contained various levels of 3-MCPD.
MCPD
In 2001 the United Kingdom Food Standards Agency found in tests of various oyster sauces and soy sauces that some 22% of samples contained a chemical called 3-MCPD (3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol) at levels considerably higher than those deemed safe by the European Union. About two-thirds of these samples also contained a second chloropropanol called 1,3-DCP (1,3-dichloropropane-2-ol) which experts advise should not be present at any levels in food. Both chemicals have the potential to cause cancer and the Agency recommended that the affected products be withdrawn from shelves and avoided.
Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) singled out brands and products imported from Thailand, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Brands named in the British warning include Golden Mountain, King Imperial, Pearl River Bridge, Jammy Chai, Lee Kum Kee (李錦記), Golden Mark, Kimlan (金蘭）, Golden Swan, Sinsin, Tung Chun and Wanjasham soy sauce. Knorr soy sauce was also implicated, as well as Uni-President Enterprises Corporation (統一企業公司) creamy soy sauce from Taiwan, Silver Swan soy sauce from the Philippines, Ta Tun soy bean sauce from Taiwan, Tau Vi Yeu seasoning sauce and Soya bean sauce from Vietnam, Zu Miao Fo Shan soy superior sauce and Mushroom soy sauce from China and Golden Mountain and Lee Kum Kee chicken marinade. “
It is clear from the information above that contaminated food had been exported from China and the risk to the consumer was only identified when products from collected from retail outlets. Moreover, what of the many other products not tested?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-petfood_N.htmPet food scare in USA It took months for U.S. veterinarians, federal officials and scientists to find out what was in the food that was sickening and killing cats and dogs. The culprit was determined to be grain from China that had been spiked with the industrial chemical melamine to make it appear higher in protein. The melamine was contaminated with cyanuric acid.
