NYT: When fakery turns fatal
By Gina Spadafori
June 5, 2007
Geez, all the great reporters are checking in today. From the N. Y. Times’ David Barboza. an article on people for whom profit is everything in a Wild West business environment in China:
They might be called China’s renegade businessmen, small entrepreneurs who are experts at counterfeiting and willing to go to extraordinary lengths to make a profit. But just how far out of the Chinese mainstream are they?
Here in Wudi in eastern China, a few companies tried to save money by slipping the industrial chemical melamine into pet food ingredients as a cheap protein enhancer, helping incite one of the largest pet food recalls ever.
In Taixing, a city far to the south, a small business cheated the system by substituting a cheap toxic chemical for pharmaceutical-grade syrup, leading to a mass poisoning in Panama. And in the eastern province of Anhui, a group of entrepreneurs concocted a fake baby-milk formula that eventually killed dozens of rural children.
The incidents are the latest indications that cutting corners or producing fake goods is not just a legacy of China’s initial rush toward the free market three decades ago but still woven into the fabric of the nation’s thriving industrial economy. It is driven by entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of a weak legal system, lax regulations and a business culture where bribery and corruption are rampant.
“This is cut-throat market capitalism,” said Wenran Jiang, a specialist in China who teaches at the University of Alberta. “But the question has to be asked: is this uniquely Chinese or is there simply a lack of regulation in the market?”
Good questions. And I don’t want to be eating what they’re selling until we have the answers. And by the way, New York Times copy desk, that’s a seriously great headline. (So great, I stole it!)
I would like to share something that my husband has said to me several times. He is a Sr. Manufacturing Engineer, the company he works for makes parts, etc. He has said to me that we, the USA, are quickly turning into a “Service Nation”. By that he means that we are sending our products to other countries to be made, and we, the USA, then service or repair the item when it’s broken. After all I have learned in the last few months about our food system, both human and pet, I feel that we are also heading this way ( or already have) when it comes to those also. We no longer grow our own foods, we import them and just mix all the ingredients up. If this is what happens when we just “service” our products then it’s way past time that we take a stand and demand better service, not only from the companies that make the products but from the government too.
Comment by Terri — June 5, 2007 @ 11:08 am
from the above article:
cutting corners and producing fake goods
sounds very much like the (pet) food industry here, doesn’t it?
It is driven by entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of a weak legal system, lax regulations and a business culture where bribery and corruption are rampant.
If we exchange ‘bribery and corruption’ with ‘political lobby-ism and campaign contributions’ it does not sound that far off.
We don’t have to go to China to encounter cut-throat mentality, greed and corner cutting. I actually found it in the pouches of my Premium cat food.
Comment by MaKo — June 5, 2007 @ 11:15 am
I’ve recently heard some radio talk show hosts wonder (lament) what ever happened to the “Made in America” ads and initiatives … in the end, it really comes down to legislation and economics (i.e., doing everything on the cheap, regulations—death—injury be damned), doesn’t it? And a legal system that has integrity and real consequences for real offenders [holding big biz/corporations truly accountable]—hopefully we’ll get that back sooner rather than later
Comment by Sandy — June 5, 2007 @ 11:20 am
http://mmxuxu1984.diytrade.com.....64318.html
Comment by Steve — June 5, 2007 @ 11:21 am
You are so right, Sandy. I would guess our corporations love to hear us bash the Chinese companies because then we’re ignoring them. You know they know they’re buying cheap, counterfeit or adulterated products, and are charging us premium prices. Reminds me of the steel and railroad barons. They did what they wanted with no consequences.
Comment by Robert — June 5, 2007 @ 11:28 am
I hate to sound pessimistic but, I don’t think the US can get back to how it was with all the great American companies here. They’ve sold out and loving it and China has found a gold mine.
And along with that comes the corruption and greed. Seems the only thing that will keep it in check is severe penalties and I mean severe, nothing like pat on the hand they get now with sissy livered courts and bought off judges.
Comment by Gary — June 5, 2007 @ 12:05 pm
And the FDA is basically powerless. The only recalls they can mandate are for baby formula. Everything else is voluntary. I get sick of the pet food companies lauding themselves for voluntarily recalling a product. That’s the only recall there is.
Comment by Robert — June 5, 2007 @ 12:08 pm
Am starting to read through the article.
My thoughts right now are could we just quit being in such an all fired up hurry to do business with a country that William Hubbard (former FDA dude) used the word “primitive” to describe what conditions our food imports are being made in and raised under?
Is there any good reason we can’t just say hey, when you finally get done with your growing pains, can we talk then about resuming imports, but in the meantime, let’s just not trade with each other? Given their newness to the world markets and their present attitudes, and given our FDA and USDA’s inability to adequately have their act together on inspections and other criticial issues, this is just not a good matchup between the USA and China right now. It is not the right time to be doing this.
Either they come up to speed faster, or we somehow gain the ability to 100% inspect until they do. But why should we incur practically the whole burden of shaping up how they do business? Everytime I read one of these pieces, I am struck by how little they want to change how they do business. No matter who gets sick or dies.
We have enough trouble trying to fix our own wrongdoers, and there is no hope with the Chinese. They are a flipping sovereign nation - we can’t just waltz in and give them the “what for” as needed.
We quit trading, we use our limited tax monies to beat the everloving heck out of our own transgressing companies, and we check back in every 6 months or so with the Chinese, and see if we can start trading again. This would be hard to do?
Comment by TC — June 5, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
We quit trading, we use our limited tax monies to beat the everloving heck out of our own transgressing companies, and we check back in every 6 months or so with the Chinese, and see if we can start trading again. This would be hard to do?
Comment by TC — June 5, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
TC,
I stopped trading with China as much as possible.
If a couple of 100,000 others do that, too, then that makes an impact.
I ask where the ingredients come from, and if I don’t get an honest and detailled answer (or my beloved ‘proprietary information’) then I vote with my wallet and don’t buy.
Keeping the politicians under pressure, errrr, reminding them that they are *our* voice in Washington and that *we* decide if they put their backsides into those chairs next turn should do something about the domestic ‘transgressing’ companies.
Imagine: if something would cook up that some politician was finacially encouraged by the pet food industry - I am willing to bet he would be chased out of office and adorned with tar and feathers right now.
:) I can’t help but smile at this mental picture….
Comment by MaKo — June 5, 2007 @ 2:30 pm
Terri,
I believe your husband is right. We are becoming a country of services. That in turn will decrease wages here and over time will re bring back manuf. to this country. We are losing our middle class. The small third world countries will become the rich countries. The older European countries are dying too.
Sometimes I think our gov’t didn’t quite understand you can’t export democracy as we have it. Free trade has different meanings in different parts of the world.
China is the golden dragon. I think our corporations are so blinded. I heard on the Financial News Network this AM. A corporate investor said: he didn’t care if China bought up a multitude of American property and corporations because they would than become really interested in democracy and freedom and be of no threat to us militarily! He had big dollar signs in his eyes thinking of all that dough.
Katie
Comment by Katie — June 5, 2007 @ 3:34 pm
We lived in a home overlooking the port of Tacoma from ‘93 -‘99. It was a real eye-opener seeing (and dodging in our boat docked there) the container ships coming in and out every day. Tons of raw logs were going out to be turned into lumber, and other wood products and then the finished product returned to US because it was cheaper than we could do here. Not toxic - but a lot of jobs lost when the lumber mills/plywood companies closed down in the Northwest.
Our economy can handle trade with developing countries if we stick to goods like lumber, fruniture, decorative items.
But there won’t be anyone here to trade with if we keep importing medical, food and cosmetic items! We have enough internal problems to handle before we will be able to deal with those posed by other countries.
Comment by Patricia Hill — June 5, 2007 @ 5:13 pm
Perhaps we should blame American businesses that moved to China. Why did they move there? Was it so they could pay cheap labor and make huge profits? Please check out http://www.transnationale.org. This web site shows what American companies are operating factories in China. Also check out http://www.mindfully.org/indus.....elfare.htm
Has anyone heard of any problems with Paws Dog and cat food? They are company owned by ADM.
Comment by thomas — June 5, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
I think I read that our federal deficit is funded partly by money borrowed from China! If the government gets too rowdy with them, they can call the loans.
I’m a business owner who used to have loans with banks. They believe they OWN you and try to tell you what to do, when to do it and how to do it. So if China is doing that to our country, I wouldn’t expect a lot of help from the government.
So I think it’s up to us consumers and private businesses not to spend our money there. It will speak louder than anything else.
Comment by Kathy — June 5, 2007 @ 6:08 pm
MaKo - I have feathers in my pillows, and bet I could find some tar out here, boy I’d be first in line:)
You make a great point re how we all can make individual contributions to the cessation of trade with offending nations.
I too have stopped trading with China regarding food. Now if only we had meaningful labels so I could root out all the remaining Chinese products in my pantry (and some from India as well).
Comment by TC — June 5, 2007 @ 6:34 pm
“A Billion Red Chinese Can Be Wrong”
Yes Weekly, Greensboro, NC: http://tinyurl.com/29tehb
Comment by Nadine Long — June 5, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
“Americans used as guinea pigs”
Idaho Mountain Express - Wednesday, June 6, 2007
“Life has always been cheap in mainland communist China. During dictator Mao Zedong’s post-World War II Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward, some 60 million Chinese are believed to have died—perhaps 20 million due to starvation, the remainder in purges of Mao’s political opponents resisting his Marxist tyranny.
The low regard for life is showing up in China’s indifference to food safety. But that can’t explain the U.S. government’s lax inspection of imported foods.”
http://tinyurl.com/2fwt9r
Comment by Nadine Long — June 6, 2007 @ 2:35 am
RE: post 2
It is driven by entrepreneurs who are taking advantage of a weak legal system, lax regulations and a business culture where bribery and corruption are rampant.
Begging your pardon, but there is no need for alternate terms for that to describe our system. Do you really believe it is possible for three private citizens to spend less than a thousand dollars between them, to identify a substance deadly to pets, when a three month long, multi million dollar US government investigation failed to do so?
Comment by Don — June 6, 2007 @ 5:14 am
IMO, I think this entire food debacle would be a fantastic topic for that radical filmmaker, Michael Moore, to tackle! He could really do some good by presenting this topic to the public. There are still so many people who are clueless. It might even force the politicians to quit sitting on their hands and do something about it!
Comment by BengalMom — June 6, 2007 @ 5:40 am
Comment by BengalMom June 6 2007 5:40am
I agree with you. Michael Moore may not be liked by a lot of people but he surely has a way to get the information out there and the point across.
Maybe he’d get another award winner for doing this.
Comment by VJ — June 6, 2007 @ 6:26 am
That’s all fine and great if we have a movie made. But for now we need in depth investigative reporting. As in NOW! I can be the only one that remembers Watergate. I wasn’t even all that old back then. But I know it was Reporters that broke that and found out what was going on and pressed the issue. Are there no investigative reporters, anymore? That Karen, she does good, but seems all alone. Don’t reporters have pets? Don’t they have to eat food, themselves? Where are they??
Itchmo, they are trying real hard. Gina and Christie do wonders keeping us informed, along with Theresa and Kim. And Karen, as I mentioned. But that’s it. Where is 60 minutes, Anderson Cooper, Nightline, anyone else that ‘calls’ themselves ‘a hard hitting investigate reporters’.
Where Are They??
Comment by Peggy (AKA: Big Fat Momma Cat) — June 6, 2007 @ 6:44 am
That should be: I *can’t* be the only one that remembers Watergate.
To much blood boiling without enough coffee, sorry.
Comment by Peggy (AKA: Big Fat Momma Cat) — June 6, 2007 @ 6:47 am
Comment by BengalMom — June 6, 2007 @ 5:40 am
Am I the only one who fails to see any ‘celebrities’ raising their voices about this scandal?
Big Money does have some influence, my my…
:) Fortunately, *I* have the thumbscrews for Big Money in my pocket, errrr, wallet. A rich big multinational company is big, rich and multinational because we pay for it.
Right now, I am in the refusal-mode and I revised my shopping and spending habits.
Without my money BigMoney will run out of money - they need me more than I need them.
Time to let them know.
Comment by MaKo — June 6, 2007 @ 8:01 am