The Associated Press: Officials fear tainted goods will harm China's stabilityBEIJING: China's fight against the production of shoddy food and drugs must be intensified or the country faces social unrest and a further tarnishing of its image abroad, senior party and regulatory officials said.
The toll exacted in the past year has been grim for victims in Panama and China who died after ingesting tainted Chinese-made pharmaceutical ingredients, and for the State Food and Drug Administration itself, with two high-level employees sentenced to death for corruption.
Attendees at a seminar in Beijing over the weekend were told to "draw profound lessons" from former SFDA director, Zheng Xiaoyu, who was sentenced to death in May for taking bribes to approve substandard medicines, including an antibiotic blamed for at least 10 deaths within China.
"We must face the fact that there are still some problems which cannot be ignored," SFDA Commissioner Shao Mingli was quoted as saying in a seminar transcript posted on the agency's Web site Monday.
"Some areas are not fully aware of the importance, hardship and complexity of this work. They fear the difficulties and suffer battle fatigue," Shao said.
China's pharmaceutical industry is lucrative but poorly regulated. Some companies try to cash in by substituting fake or substandard ingredients.
Fears abroad over Chinese-made items were sparked last year by the deaths of dozens of people in Panama who took products contaminated with diethylene glycol, a thickening agent in antifreeze, imported from China. It was passed off as harmless glycerin.
A top Panamanian prosecutor has said tests show at least 94 people have died from taking medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol since July 2006, and 293 more deaths are under investigation.
In North America earlier this year, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine was blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats.
Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.
"Food security problems have impeded Chinese agri-products and food many times in international trade, and damaged our national credibility and image," Sun Xianze, a food supervision officer with the SFDA, told the conference in Beijing.
He cited a laundry list of domestic food scares from the past year, including drug-tainted fish, banned Sudan dye used to color egg yolks red, and pork tainted with clenbuterol, a banned feed additive.
He said more such cases would "not only affect the healthy development of the industry, but could also impact local economies and social stability."
Qu Wanxiang, the vice minister of supervision for the Communist Party's Central Commission for Discipline and Inspection, said the former SFDA director Zheng's corruption "shook the government's regulatory foundation and damaged the government's image."
Under Zheng's 1998-2005 tenure, his agency approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, and the drug makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, state media have reported.
Zheng's death sentence was unusually heavy even for China, believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, and likely indicates the leadership's determination to confront the country's dire product safety record.
On Friday, China sentenced another official, one of Zheng's former subordinates, to death for taking bribes.
By: sarah quek
Sarah's commentary:
The issue of sub-standard food and other products made in China has created a huge uproar form the public on food and product safety. It does make most of us wonder every time we buy something that says "Made in China" , whether or not we will be 'poisoned'. Seeing reports of tainted food products every few months is quite worrying because reports like these will inadvertently affect the world's perception of China's products. this could lead to massive banning of goods from China, like Japan banning the importation of gyoza dumplings from China. Not only that, this could lead to adverse effect on retailers worlwide as seen in the Mattel toy recall case where too much poisonous substances were found in children's toys. The repercussions of selling/producing sub-standard products can affect China's economy and political standing. As countries cut down imports from China, the Chinese government may not be able to sustain the rate of economic growth and as such, there could be social upheaval if there is massive unemployment resulting from a potential slowdown in economic growth.
Sarah 07A201
Labels: Political, Sarah 07A201, Social, Tainted Goods
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