You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2007.
China may be concerned about the international reputation of its food and drug exports, but it’s certainly not worried about its reputation for ruthlessness. Two weeks ago, Zheng Xiaoyu, the man who had headed China’s FDA from its founding nine years ago until he was fired in 2005, was put on trial for dereliction of duty, accepting bribes from drug companies in exchange for production licenses, and for leading a “dissolute life.”
It wasn’t a long trial. Today, Zheng was sentenced to death.
Those communists don’t fool around.
It probably won’t be up for much longer, but for now you can read a statement by Zheng on the China-FDA website:
The State Food and Drug Administration of P. R. China, a government department directly under the central government, is in charge of comprehensive supervision on the safety management of food, health food and cosmetics and is the competent authority of drug regulation. As the commissioner, I will always work to make the food and drug administration of China towards law-based supervision, science & equity, honesty and upright & high efficiency, standardized behavior, to gradually establish a legal system in line with a socialist market economy and international practice and to work hard to fulfill the lofty and sacred duties.
Thousands of people in China are sickened or killed every year by phony or counterfeit drugs and tainted food, according to the NY Times’ David Barboza, but only today did the government announce that it is preparing to release its first regulation on nationwide food recalls. Zheng apparently had been fulfilling the lofty and sacred duties a little too gradually.
Update: Zheng was executed on July 10.
Last Monday, we pointed out that the Bush administration’s anti-regulatory policies, as implemented by its former “regulations czar” John D. Graham, have contributed to the rapidly escalating problem of unregulated food imports. In yesterday’s NY Times, Paul Krugman took us back a little further, placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of Milton Friedman—the Nobel Prize winning American economist who spent most of his career (1946-1977) at the University of Chicago.
Friedman, a believer in laissez-faire capitalism, saw economic freedom as a necessary precursor to political freedom. In his mind, the benefits of the free market always outweigh those of government intervention. His ideas helped shape the economic policies of modern conservatives from Nixon to Reagan and Thatcher, and on down the line to our current President. In his column yesterday, Krugman draws this link:
Friedman called for the abolition of both the food and the drug sides of the F.D.A. What would protect the public from dangerous or ineffective drugs? “It’s in the self-interest of pharmaceutical companies not to have these bad things,” he insisted in a 1999 interview. He would presumably have applied the same logic to food safety (as he did to airline safety): regardless of circumstances, you can always trust the private sector to police itself.
Obviously, Friedman was a smart guy. We haven’t read his books, and hell, maybe we should add them to the list of items to bring to the beach this summer! (Or maybe not.) But we must admit—we’re baffled. How could a man who was 26 years old when the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was passed conclude that the free market cleans up its own messes?
Rick Weiss at the Washington Post had a great article yesterday on how the FDA has been overwhelmed by the flood of toxic food, drugs, and cosmetics coming into the U.S. from China. An excerpt:
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. 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…
And they only inspect 1% of imported food shipments!
Maybe you’re a lover of barbecue. Maybe you’ve been wanting to fire up that charcoal pit, but you’ve been thinking to yourself, “Damn. That melamine-tainted pork! Is it safe?? Should I resign myself to eating marinated tofu this summer?” Well, you can rest easy!! The FDA announced yesterday that it is safe to eat pork from hogs who’ve been chowing down on melamine-adulterated pet food scraps. In fact, you can eat 799 POUNDS of that pork!! But—watch out for the 800th pound…they’re not making any promises for your safety on that one. As is the case so frequently when it comes to eating the things we love, moderation is key…
March 16: Menu Foods announces a recall of some of its pet food, citing “its impact on the renal health of the pets consuming the products.”
March 17: FDA press release on the recall. “Nine cats died during routine taste trials conducted by the company.” [The updated recall list is here.]
March 18: AP article reports that the recall involves “dog food sold under 48 brands and cat food sold under 40 brands including Iams, Nutro and Eukanuba.”
March 20: Menu Foods is sued by a pet owner.
March 30: FDA announces that the industrial chemical melamine is found in the recalled pet food, in imported “wheat gluten” [later found to be adulterated wheat flour—see the May 8 entry], and in the urine and tissue of ill pets.
What on Earth Are We Eating? 