May 21, 2007
Chinese imports: not good enough to eat?
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical.No nativist screed, this -- it's from the Washington Post. With the recent pet holocaust and the scores of dead in Panama thanks to tainted Chinese medicine and toothpaste, one wonders how much more it will take before business as usual comes to an end.Frozen catfish laden with banned antibiotics.
Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria.
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.
These were among the 107 food imports from China that the Food and Drug Administration detained at U.S. ports just last month, agency documents reveal, along with more than 1,000 shipments of tainted Chinese dietary supplements, toxic Chinese cosmetics and counterfeit Chinese medicines.
For years, U.S. inspection records show, China has flooded the United States with foods unfit for human consumption.
Despite those violations, the Chinese government is on track to get permission to legally export its chickens to the United States -- a prospect that has raised concern not only because of fears of bacteria such as salmonella but also because Chinese chickens, if not properly processed, could be a source of avian flu, which public-health authorities fear may be poised to trigger a human pandemic.
Posted by David on May 21, 2007 4:14 PM
One must continue to be astonished by the willingness of successive admistrations, Democrat and Republican alike to throw open our borders to inadequately screened,massive imports of materials, largely from the PRC but also elsewhere. The ironic aspect of this is that it took the deaths of American pets to make our government sensitive to the prospect of possible poisoning of our food stream by other Chinese originating additives or foods. In a jesture today, attempting to show that the Chinese leadership is "on top" of the situation, a Chinese court has sentenced the agency head responsible for the "errors" to death. Imaginre that. What a marvelous government that executes bureaucrats. One wonders if he is to be killed because he did not "catch the errors" of Chinese producers or because China got caught. On the other hand, after the mess of Katrina, here in our own country, one wonders if our bureaucrats should pay stiffer penalties for their missteps or lack of action. Hmmmm.
In all seriousness, the mass of material entering the U.S. from China is just so badly inspected. The contamination story continues to unfold and one wonders where it will end. One also wonders why governments does not slow that flood until adequate inspection measures are in place. We simply cannot risk the poisoning of our people by a lack of action. Harry Truman, a marvelous President, is famous for his candor and also for the sign on his desk: "The Buck Stops Here." On muct wonder where the buck in Washington now stops.
Posted by: Donald Wolberg on May 29, 2007 9:04 PM
cronaca.com