Well, today was supposed to be about light reading but instead I came across a very disturbing article in the Washington Post. It appears China has been shelving and exporting "fake" food in addition to tampering with other products. It began with pet food and an alarming spike in deaths in animals, but it has quickly escalated to messing with baby formula. In China, people began noticing that babies and young children who were formula fed were suddenly starting to resemble bobble heads: their heads appeared to become larger and their bodies were starting to waste away. The formula has been tampered with and is laced with harmful chemicals, not nutritional baby food as advertised. How can this be happening? Is China taking the Kim Jung Il approach to life? Starving their own, contaminating food it imports to the world, not apologizing for their irrational and thoughtless behavior? The worst part about this story is that it has been happening for a few years now. A few years!!!! Explain to me how we run to Iraq's aid but China is killing babies, poisoning people by selling "fake" food, exporting contaminated goods and we do nothing. I'm guessing it's because we have too much invested in China and why rock a boat that's so incredibly lucrative?! Here is a bit of the story in the Washington Post: "SHANGHAI -- Something was wrong with the babies. The villagers noticed their heads were growing abnormally large while the rest of their bodies were skin and bones. By the time Chinese authorities discovered the culprit -- severe malnutrition from fake milk powder -- 13 had died. ... With China playing an ever-larger role in supplying food, medicine and animal feed to other countries, recognition of the hazards has not kept up. By value, China is the world's No. 1 exporter of fruits and vegetables, and a major exporter of other food and food products, which vary widely, from apple juice to sausage casings and garlic. China's agricultural exports to the United States surged to $2.26 billion last year, according to U.S. figures -- more than 20 times the $133 million of 1980. China has been especially poor at meeting international standards. The United States subjects only a small fraction of its food imports to close inspection, but each month rejects about 200 shipments from China, mostly because of concerns about pesticides and antibiotics and about misleading labeling. In February, border inspectors for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration blocked peas tainted by pesticides, dried white plums containing banned additives, pepper contaminated with salmonella and frozen crawfish that were filthy." Washington Post - Ariana Eunjung Cha Check out the whole story at www.washingtonpost.com in the "World" section. If the FDA knows there are contaminated products being imported to the US, or any other country for that matter, why would we be so stupid as to accept any of them? Don't we run the risk of getting an awful lot of people sick or worse, killed? Doesn't that make us just as liable? I cannot understand how this system works - but then again I don't think anyone knows. I think different people make up rules as they go along and what is most frightening is the price their willing to pay for a profit. I say we start looking a lot closer to the items we buy and figure out where they come from so we don't get sick ourselves. How scary is this whole situation! Sorry this couldn't be a light and fluffy post but this is a newsworthy, blog-worthy story. One that deserves our attention. The moral of the story - be wary of Chinese imports!
