U.S. food-safety team heads to China

[Rhiannon12866]

Source: CNN

BEIJING, China (Reuters) -- A U.S. delegation arrives in Beijing on Tuesday on a five-day fact-finding mission on food and drug safety amid a series of health scares about the "made in China" label.

The United States stepped up inspections of imports from China after a chemical additive in pet food caused the death of pets there this spring.

Since then, poisonous ingredients have been found in Chinese exports of toys, toothpaste and fish, while the deaths of patients in Panama was blamed on improperly labeled Chinese chemicals that were mixed into cough syrup.

"Our U.S. regulatory agencies are concerned about what they see as insufficient infrastructure across the board in China to assure the safety, quality and effectiveness of many products exported to the United States," the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement.


Read more: http://www.cnn.com:80/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/30/china.food.safety.reut/index.html

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About time... :-(

[w4rma]

1. There is going to be a lot of political pressure from big buisness to prevent their findings from

being shown to regular Americans and to prevent them from accomplishing much over there.

[PSPS]

2. We're supposed to be mollified by a couple of "loyal bushies" going to China?

It's probably just to pick up a bag of cash for the RNC in exchange for "favorable findings."

[emilyg]

3. You got it!!!

[Deja Q]

7. Supposition; do you have proof that claim is really fact?

And let's hope it isn't reality too.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. I just can't imagine that they would find anything "favorable," after all the

terrible things that have transpired, but these bastards will say anything and just expect the American public to swallow it, no matter how blatantly it contradicts known facts...:grr:

My feeling is that we should just stop importing anything from China, in light of what we've learned about their lack of safety standards, but I'm realistic about the chances of that happening, considering what we owe them, thanks to Bush*... ;(

[Sherman A1]

4. I wonder?

Just what they will be eating while there?

[MonteLukast]

5. Hmmm...

Cardboard buns, maybe?

[candice]

6. Eat locally, we don't need to buy Produced in China soybeans in the U.S.

when China is importing soybeans from the former rain forests of Brazil (a Chinese official said it was a way to import water into China). China needs to focus on feeding its own citizens safely, not paving over farmland and increasing desertification by producing more stuff for the Western world. We have enough plastic goodies.

The transportation costs alone, including the CO2 spewed into the atmosphere (and the 25% of the polluted air over L.A. that results from China) should give us a clue as to what is right for the environment. I was just rinsing those soybeans in water before giving them to my parrot (and assumed they were a U.S. product). At least they looked like endamame beans, but who knows?