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Food safety and China: Well, at least they’re talking
By Gina Spadafori
December 12, 2007
Lots of articles this morning on the U.S.-China trade agreement, especially the food safety provisions. As reader Nadine points out, at least the Washington Post is up to “scores” of pets dead in this timeline (although that’s still a long way from thousands, or even hundreds). USA Today does better, in this piece on the trade accord:
Worries about the safety of Chinese imports have defined the booming but often fraught Chinese-U.S. trading relationship in 2007. On Tuesday, during bilateral talks with Gutierrez that she described as “heated,” Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi, leader of a nationwide quality-raising campaign, complained that U.S. media had “hyped the product safety issue, causing serious damage to the image of Chinese products and China’s national reputation.”
Tensions surfaced in the spring, when thousands of American dogs and cats were poisoned by eating pet food made with tainted ingredients imported from China. A subsequent cascade of quality problems has included toxic toothpaste, unsafe tires, chemical-laden seafood and millions of lead-painted toys. On Thursday, Home Depot (HD) recalled about 64,000 Chinese-made festive figurines because of the lead paint hazard, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says.
Product safety “engages at a deeper, more visceral level than other issues,” said U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt, who was also in the Chinese capital Monday.
The globalized marketplace, in which the USA imported $2 trillion worth of goods last year, means “you can’t inspect your way to product safety. There’s just too much of it,” Leavitt said. “We are not just scaling up existing processes, we are inventing them.”
On Tuesday, Leavitt unveiled what he sees as the new world of import controls. With Chinese counterparts, he signed two “strong and action-oriented” agreements to enhance the safety of food and feed, plus medical devices and drugs, that the USA imports from China.
All fine and dandy, but I still say lets have Country of Origin Labeling, so we can make our own decisions and whom we trust.
Sen. Dick Durbin says the trade agreement doesn’t go far enough:
[The] Memorandum of Understanding still falls short in a number of critical areas.
Today’s agreement applies to a tiny fraction of the food we import from China. And while it can be expanded, it doesn’t cover nearly enough products to restore our confidence in Chinese goods. The risk-based model on which the new food inspection system is based is sound; we simply should broaden the list of designated products that should be inspected before they are placed on supermarket shelves.
Read the rest.
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“you can’t inspect your way to product safety.”
Well . . . . maybe yes, and maybe no. If you’re a company watching your bottom line, you’ll learn that if you rely on inspection of finished goods under a “pass/fail” system, you’ll probably be throwing away a lot of product, which is expensive. So the “lessons of quality” that a lot of corporations learned during the 90s was that -rather than “inspecting into compliance” - a better model was to put measures in place far upstream of the finished product which decreased the need for expensive inspections and expensive discards because you KNEW that you were producing better product.
That model only works when you have a vested interest in the outcome (i.e. a company’s bottom line at the end of each year).
When you’re some other country who stands to gain by passing off a lot of bad product because there’s a good chance that the 1% inspection at this end won’t catch it, the model falls flat. In THIS case, the answer is to INCREASE inspections until you force the issue with the other country by making it more expensive for them to ship bad product than to ship good. Then - and ONLY then - will they begin paying attention to their OWN upstream processes to improve safety.
This, of course, means we have to spend OUR money to obtain THEIR compliance. Which this government doesn’t appear to be willing to do.
Given that’s the case, the only other answer is to find a way to hit them in their bottom line without affecting ours. And that way would be to simply stop buying product from them.
And as far as I’m concerned, it’s just that simple.
Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 12, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Here’s another good quote from the article:
“There are too many factories in China. Quality is a long-term problem and cannot be solved in just four months,” said Liu, who is concerned that many Chinese firms lack the “concept of quality control and the habit of observing the law.”
Read this one very carefully. I’ve lived through this process as a long-term employee of a large corporation that has gone through “quality program” after “quality program” over the years. And yes - I’ve seen things get better. But as the paragraph above notes - it didn’t happen in months. It happened over a period of *years*.
Shifting basic attitudes and value systems just isn’t that easy, and certainly isn’t that quick.
Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 12, 2007 @ 9:03 am
Which is why, again, I come back to Country of Origin Labeling. If all these “let the market decide” people really believe in the market to fix things, then level the playing field so the market really CAN decide. (Or at least, we consumers can.)
Comment by Gina Spadafori — December 12, 2007 @ 9:13 am
But how many product have a single country of origin now? Most that have multiple ingrediants get them from multiple sources and mya be mosts home grown ‘in season’ and not ‘out of season’. I doubt very many recipe-based products at all are 100% sourced within any one country currently or could assure that they are given that they buy from mills that buy from sources that import from… well… etc.
Country of origin labelling in the UK lead to the insanity that anything put in a plastic bag in the UK can be stamped British-made. Allowing cheap meat raised overseas under lax guidlines to have a Union Jack all over it.
A strciter guideline would mean all major pet food brands being labelled ‘various origins’ and would, at best, guve a ‘hoem grown’ advantage to some small and organic brands.
Comment by emily — December 12, 2007 @ 10:50 am
Ouch, sorry for the typoes, typing on lunch break whilst also eating lunch.
Comment by emily — December 12, 2007 @ 10:51 am
Emily, what you’re telling us is that the UK doesn’t really have “country of origin labeling”; it has something that looks like it, kinda, but not if you examine it closely.
I’m not sure why giving “home grown” an advantage would be a bad thing, or even a not-particularly-good thing. It’s a lot easier to regulate safety and quality standards in your own country than it is to try and do it in some other country—especially in one that doesn’t see what the point is.
Comment by Lis — December 12, 2007 @ 11:28 am
I think Country of Origin labeling is a great idea, but I also see what Emily is saying.
What we can all do, immediately, is simply, as much as we can, not buy anything we can’t source. The heck with waiting for the gov’mint. I suspect the devil in that one is, as usual with something that sounds simple, in the details. But it has reached the point where I’m surprised when I check a label and see that the item wasn’t made in China.
I’ve personally committed to not knowingly buying factory-farmed beef, chicken, pork or fish. So, if I can’t source it, I don’t buy it, either in the grocery store or in a restaurant. Fortunately, up here behind the Redwood Curtain, we have two local ranchers whose cattle are organic and grass-fed, so we can buy beef that is local and humanely raised. Ditto our dairy products. Most of the dairy ranchers are either organic or working on it. We’re very lucky.
There’s also the issue of buying less in general, no matter where it comes from. Check out Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping http://www.revbillycom
Comment by Susan Fox — December 12, 2007 @ 11:43 am
Shoot, it should be http://www.revbilly.com. And I wasn’t even trying to eat at the same time.
Comment by Susan Fox — December 12, 2007 @ 11:44 am
OK, I think County of Origin labels will be a deterrant, but to what extent, I’m not sure. I’m so cynical at this point that I think it would be difficult to tell all the countries of origin that go into a product. Let’s say that raw product A is grown in Australia, but then it’s shipped to Indonesia where it mixed with something else and becomes product B, and that is shipped to Thailand where it becomes adulterated into product C….which ends up in China, is refined, and then is shipped to the US. So which is the “country of origin” when there are a zillion additives, each originating from a different country?
Unless ALL the countries in the entire product composition have “country of origin” laws and only if ALL the countries practice honesty will we ever be able to tell where something comes from.
The real solution is to get rid of all these trade pacts and produce it in the US.
Comment by Lynn — December 12, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
I agree with Lynn. So many products have multiple ingredients from all over the world, even though the final end product is processed in the USA. And even those identical ingredients might be purchased from multiple countries depending on market price/availability.
Private labels also source often from multiple locations.
I think I have seen an increase on labels that now will say cleverly “packed in the USA” in addition to marketed/distributed by “x”. You be amazed how many people when quickly reading, think that it is a product of the USA.
Unless a simple (with a large volume of single main ingredient)product and I cannot envision how a complicated compound product can be labeled with COOL,accounting for each single (often moving targets) ingredient.Process of elimination is easier. Most products that are really made/produced in the USA,will proudly state that on the label. Or sticker, like on fresh fruit.
Only if you block an offending country for a while from exporting to the USA, might you get some positive results and that ain’t going to happen. Too many global companies with manf. plants all over the world..
Comment by Serijna — December 12, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
Of course you would immediately get counter protectionism for US products that are, for example, adulturated with unlabelled GMO grains, potassium on meat and growth hormones in milk (all of which are banned or must be labelled in many other nations).
Most big US food brands don’t want that sort of labelling on the world trade stage as it would bite them pretty hard on the export market where *US* products are seen as the dangerous ones…
Comment by emily — December 12, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
Quite an eye opening article from Discover Magazine:
**China’s Syndrome**
**Tainted products and choking pollution spark anxiety across the globe**
…“Over the past three decades, China has emerged as an economic colossus, becoming the world’s source of cheaply manufactured exports. In 2007, numerous reports of contaminated Chinese imports revealed a nasty downside to this rapid growth.
**The first blow came in March, with the revelation that cat food and dog food were killing family pets across the United States; it contained wheat gluten, an ingredient imported from the People’s Republic of China, which was laced with deadly melamine.”** …
More:
http://discovermagazine.com/20.....s-syndrome
Comment by Nadine L. — December 12, 2007 @ 2:53 pm
Applause for the State of California!
**Lead found in kids’ jewelry across state**
Associated Press
December 12, 2007
“SACRAMENTO — State investigators say they have purchased children’s jewelry at retail outlets across California with unsafe levels of lead.
The items include a pendant from a gum ball machine at a Church’s Fried Chicken in Oakland that authorities said was made of nearly solid lead. It had a lead content of 368,000 parts per million.
A new state law limits lead content in metallic material in children’s jewelry to 600 parts per million.
One third of the more than 125 pieces of jewelry tested so far by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control had excessive levels of lead.
State officials have ordered stores, including Macy’s, Dollar Tree and Gap Kids, to take the lead-tainted items off their shelves.”
Let’s hope all the other states follow through as well.
Now do they believe us?????
Comment by Nadine L. — December 12, 2007 @ 3:07 pm
Put an “inspection fee” on all imports payable by the manufacturer. All $$$ goes to hiring inspectors. Let the people who make this garbage pay for it.
Comment by Carol — December 12, 2007 @ 3:11 pm
I don’t think creating more levies on incoming products is the way to go. We simply have to stop this business of being the chief importer of foreign goods.
Read the “China Syndrome” DISCOVERY article that Nadine L linked in her posting.
I’ve long felt that China’s goal was to usurp the US in terms of power and according to the article, that could well happen within the next 5 years.
“The conventional wisdom has long held that China is merely following the path of the United States ………. the epic pace of China’s development could spawn an ecological catastrophe of a different order……. not comparable to anything we have faced in this [the US].”
Presently they’re over-utilizing coal for energy and if they keep going at this rate, my guess is that they’ll soon coat the earth with perpetual toxic emissions. Haven’t they learned from our experience?
Shut down foreign trade! We can learn to do without.
Comment by Lynn — December 12, 2007 @ 10:00 pm
Why not make the people who make and import and retail the true garbage pay for just the garbage. That is, impose HUGE fines on those companies whose products contain unacceptable taints. I am talking about a fine several times the total value of each product and imposed for each tainted product imported or sold. If we could just agree to chase Congress to get such a measure passed, the retailer, importer, and brand could have a hefty fine to look at, and they would be instantly interested in INSPECTING and TESTING products themselves for taints to AVOID those fines. There would be no profits in getting caught with even a small percentage of bad products. They can earmark the fines for more inspections, labs, and inspectors.
It is true we’d have to fight their lobbyists in Washington to get this passed, but do we really think that just reading a COOL label is going to fix this problem?
Truth is, we have companies already moving to avoid COOL by including ingredients from all over the globe while assembling or packaging the product in yet another country. They even are willing to ship US ingredients elsewhere like to China, and then have the final product made there. Do we really think it would be a big deal for them to ship a few US ingredients to other places and mask other Chinese ingredients in yet another assembly country for the labeling? Depending upon how the rules wind up implemented, we are likely to see Assembled in …, Distributed in …, Partially Manufactured in …, Made with U.S. ingredients, etc. We already have that in some of the less than useful labeling in pet products on the shelves in major pet retailers. Think jerky and treats.
And we already are seeing imports of banned food products into the U.S. marked other products making it past the FDA because the product named on the box isn’t food.
Throwing money at the FDA won’t help. Mandating inspections might. But we need those fines and we need to head off the lobbyists on this one. We can’t have top FDA executives simply increasing their own salaries while cutting labs and cutting testing.
I am also concerned about the recent bill to have the FDA certify and oversee the labs. We not only have the fox in charge of the hen house, we are bound and determined to make sure the private guard dogs are licensed by, inspected by, and muzzled by that fox.
Another aspect of fixing this has to do with making the FDA responsive to consumer interests. It strikes me that the top management there should be consumer advocates, not former corporate officials from the companies that will be overseen. The focus is wrong. What we have is an agency protecting the corporations from the public and from losses.
And I still want a detailed explanation of why the Expertox acetaminophen findings were not found in the other labs. There is a reason and it must be made public. Perhaps the GAO auditors need to look for it.
Comment by Dennis — December 12, 2007 @ 11:02 pm
The reality is that American corporations have too much invested in China to stop using their factories. This has been stated many times in the news recently. Yes, products should be made in the US; but that’s not going to happen in the forseeable future. I want to identify the suspect products NOW - huges fines are OK with me - but we still need inspectors to identify those suspect products.
Comment by Carol — December 13, 2007 @ 7:30 am
It has to hit them in their bottom line. And if they can’t financially afford to pull out of their investments in China, then if we increase inspections (and fines are okay, too) and start turning away ALL the tainted products, that will affect their profits - the only message they’re likely to “hear”.
This “1% inspection” travesty simply cannot go on.
Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 13, 2007 @ 8:28 am
Has anyone or a group started testing the animal toys, balls, stuffed animals etc, for lead etc?
Bet they will be high, if the kiddie line is.
Anyone know a site to buy safe toys.
Thanks.
Comment by Mary — December 13, 2007 @ 8:48 am
Seems I’ve been spending more time in recent days looking at labels before I buy anything at all. I came across a name brand cookie that said on it’s label “Manufactured for (company)” and nothing else. Another one said “Produced for (company).” Yet another said nothing about origin, just “Distributed by (company).” There’s a good chance these products are not from the U.S. for if they were, they would say so. I picked up one of those pretty $2.50 Christmas tins of “Danish” cookies that is sold just about everywhere and looked at the label. “Made in China” of course. Wonder if FDA tested THEM! Frightening! Please don’t tell me M&Ms are made in China. I’ll just die.
Comment by Nadine L. — December 13, 2007 @ 9:22 am
A month or so ago when blueberries were becoming scarce at the supermarkets I was surprised to see them in one store. I looked closely…..had some Chinese hieroglyphics. Boy, I sure wanted them…..but not THAT badly.
Comment by Lynn — December 13, 2007 @ 11:04 am
Mary:
Re safe pet toys and testing, see:
http://www.itchmo.com/pet-owne.....-lead-3021
Quite truthfully, I wouldn’t give a lot of credence to a pet store’s test results. And if the University lab is using criteria set for small children……well, a chihuahua weighs a lot less than a small child and would be affected more signficantly if there are toxic chemicals.
Last but not least…..remember how we didn’t know for a long time that melamine and cyanuric acid don’t do well together? How do we know that lead and some other chemical in pet food won’t mix.
As a suggestion, [no one can guarantee that they’re safe though] consider going to the baby department and check out their little toys. As long as your pet doesn’t chew them to pieces, I’d feel safer buying a child’s toy for a pet.
Comment by Lynn — December 13, 2007 @ 11:12 am
Lynn, IMO I wouldn’t even trust baby toys. We haven’t heard about any tests on them yet. Common sense tells me that we’ll see the same results there. What about plush toys? Same fire retardant toxic chemical on them, no? And we wonder why the rise in autism . . . Which leads me to my next question of any stats on behavioral changes in dogs possibly due to toy toxins? When you hear about lead, cadmium, all the toxins now being revealed in toy tests, who knows?
Early in my career some great advice was once shared with me by a former boss: “Never assume.” Haven’t always followed it, but I sure am now.
Comment by Nadine L. — December 13, 2007 @ 12:56 pm
OK, Nadine, let me rephrase the last sentence of my post above yours so I can make it clear:
You would be wise to purchase NEITHER animal nor child toys for your pets or kids. Give them your time and play with them instead.
Comment by Lynn — December 13, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
On the question of safe toys, I have purchased toys and beds from West Paw Designs where they are US made (Montana). I have been very happy with the quality and very happy that I could buy from and support people in my own country. I have lots of money left at the end of buying trips because I won’t buy Chinese made goods.
Comment by Connie — December 13, 2007 @ 6:47 pm
I like that alot, Lynn! At least until we can find toys that we know have been tested and proven to be safe. Now that all this has come up, how can we be sure that even our totally U.S. made toys are safe? Have THEY been tested? Hmmmmmm.
Comment by Nadine L. — December 13, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
Here’s an article about how even *Chinese* consumers avoid buying toys made in China!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200.....ina_s_toys
Comment by The OTHER Pat — December 14, 2007 @ 1:32 pm