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Vendaval -> "China's food safety woes expand overseas" (4/12/2007 10:03:53 PM)
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"China's food safety woes expand overseas"
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer
Thu Apr 12, 6:50 PM ET
" SHANGHAI, China - The list of Chinese food exports rejected at American ports reads like a chef's nightmare:
pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella.
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The problems the government faces are legion. Pesticides and chemical fertilizers are used in excess to boost yields while harmful antibiotics are widely administered to control disease in seafood and livestock. Rampant industrial pollution risks introducing heavy metals into the food chain.
Farmers have used cancer-causing industrial dye Sudan Red to boost the value of their eggs and fed an asthma medication to pigs to produce leaner meat. In a case that galvanized the public's and government's attention, shoddy infant formula with little or no nutritional value has been blamed for causing severe malnutrition in hundreds of babies and killing at least 12.
China's Health Ministry reported almost 34,000 food-related illnesses in 2005, with spoiled food accounting for the largest number, followed by poisonous plants or animals and use of agricultural chemicals.
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Over the past 25 years, Chinese agricultural exports to the U.S. surged nearly 20-fold to $2.26 billion last year, led by poultry products, sausage casings, shellfish, spices and apple juice.
Inspectors from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are able to inspect only a tiny percentage of the millions of shipments that enter the U.S. each year.
Even so, shipments from China were rejected at the rate of about 200 per month this year, the largest from any country, compared to about 18 for Thailand, and 35 for Italy, also big exporters to the U.S., according to data posted on the FDA's Web site.
Chinese products are bounced for containing pesticides, antibiotics and other potentially harmful chemicals, and false or incomplete labeling that sometimes omits the producer's name. "
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070412/ap_on_re_as/china_food_fears;_ylt=At9_O_LvkLUyLndSIY5KknpvaA8F
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