Doing business in China: July 2007 Archives

By Mohd Nasir Yusoff | BERNAMA
July 28, 2007

JAKARTA, July 28 (Bernama) -- Indonesia has banned the import of food supplements, cosmetics and medicine from China which are said to pose health hazards.

The ban, which was effective early this month, followed findings that the medicines contained chemical substances while the cosmetics were mixed with mercury and rhodamin and its food products were mixed with formalin which were dangerous to health.

"The ban will only be lifted after the authorities had inspected them," Indonesian Medicine and Food Control Organisation (BPOM) Chief Husniah Rubiana Thamrin Akib said here today.

Husniah said the ban was also imposed by other countries which found that these products contained hazardous substances.

BPOM was also carrying out inspections on all goods from China to check those which contained the dangerous agents with a view of destroying them.

>> Read the complete article

By Chris Buckley | REUTERS AlertNet
23 July 2007

BEIJING, July 23 (Reuters) - China has stopped the public release of an official study putting a cost to the nation's environmental damage, a government researcher told a Chinese newspaper, blaming official reluctance to confront pollution.

The Beijing News reported on Monday that the release of a "green GDP" report computing the cost of pollution and ecological degradation in 2005 had been "indefinitely postponed".

Wang Jinnan, a senior expert at the Chinese Academy for Environmental Planning who was technical head of the project, said publicising the cost of bad air, water and soil had drawn fierce opposition from local officials eager to maintain growth.

"Taking out the costs of environmental damage would lead to a huge fall in the quality of economic growth in some areas," Wang told the paper.

"At present many areas still place GDP above all else, and when such thinking dominates, the size of resistance to a green GDP can well be imagined."

Wang said some provincial governments had lobbied the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and the National Bureau of Statistics not to release the data.

The report was originally scheduled for release in March, the China Youth Daily reported.

A previous report for 2004 had calculated that environmental degradation that year cost 511.8 billion yuan ($67.7 billion) or 3.05 percent of gross domestic product -- a figure one SEPA official said at the time was "shocking".

That earlier report was issued in September last year with official fanfare and wide domestic media attention.

The report for 2005 shows "losses from pollution and reduction in the GDP indicator even higher than the 2004 report", the paper said, citing a weekend seminar on the study.

The report would also have computed economic losses from pollution for each province -- a sensitive step in a system where maintaining economic growth can be crucial to officials' promotion prospects.

The unusual revelation of official infighting is the latest sign that China's struggle to balance economic growth with environmental concerns has become a volatile political issue.

The Financial Times reported this month China had asked the World Bank not to publish estimates of the number of premature Chinese deaths each year from polluted air and water.

The bank study said about 460,000 Chinese died prematurely each year from water and air pollution and about 300,000 more died from indoor toxins.

>> Read the complete article

The Motley Fool
July 19, 2007

Be careful about what you buy, and what you put in your mouth

I really didn't know which board this was best suited for, but this is as good a place as any. I have been nearly bed-ridden the past couple weeks, and I feel like venting a bit, because I don't know if anyone here really knows how vulnerable our food supply is, and my poor health has been proof of that. I've spent much more time here on the message boards because I couldn't do much other than sit around. Bear in mind I had not been to see a doctor for illness since early 2000 (7 1/2 years ago), so it is unusual for me to get sick. Before this experience, Shrimp has always been my favorite food, and I had never had an allergic reaction to food.

I got sick from shrimp imported from China. Either melamine or fluoroquinones, or both. The exact cause was not verified. My doctor only treated me for the resulting bronchitis/pneumonia symptoms I experienced from my resistance being down, but I'm past it now. I had experienced kidney pain, which melamine could cause, and my initial prescribed anti-biotic wasn't strong enough. The doctor had to prescribe a stronger one. Fluoroquinones create resistance to anti-biotics. I had eaten at Captain D's regularly over the past year, as my family liked to go there on family night, and I would normally get the shrimp. In addition, I ate twice in a short period, on June 19 and 21 (shrimp lover's meals both times- 32 pieces of shrimp total), and shortly after the second time had a severe reaction, and became quite sick for two weeks after that. I emailed Captain D's corporate office and received their standard “legal” response, but they did confirm that some of their supply is from China. I had to call the national Poison Control hotline to log my case in also. At the time I ate there, the news had not yet hit about the Chinese seafood scare.

As I've gone through this “ordeal” I have also read up on what is going on with our Chinese food supply, and here are the things you must know:

1. Seafood (obviously). Verify it is not from farmed Chinese sources. Supposedly the open ocean caught seafood, exported by China is okay. It is when they farm it inland that they use those chemicals, and that is shrimp or catfish especially. Here is what the two chemicals do:
Melamine poisoning – can cause bladder cancer, also kidney stones.
Fluoroquinones – strong anti-biotic, but when passed through food in this way, can cause you to develop harmful immunities to anti-biotics, preventing their effectiveness in future treatments.

2. Cough Syrup. Don't buy any cheap cough syrup. The same ingredient in the Chinese toothpaste has been found in cheap foreign cough syrup (deaths in Panama). No incidents reported here in the U.S., but no one has come forward to say all U.S. supplies are free and clear either.

3. Vitamin C. Begin to take a critical look at ingredients and labeling, Vitamin C is only one of many to watch. The Chinese control 90% of the market on the chemical used for this, and there are rumors of harmful metal content. The U.S. food and beverage companies may have to begin quality testing of the Vitamin C additive, rather than giving it a free ride. This is a developing story, but it appears that the testing for additives is not the same as for food by the FDA.

4. This list is longer, but you just don't know it yet, remember that.
“Since U.S. laws don't require food and drug sellers to label products with the country of origin of ingredients, it's impossible for consumers to know where food or supplements are coming from, not to mention what factory produced them.” See Seattle Times news link below.

Last, the leader in China who was their equivalent of our FDA chief was executed yesterday. That's how significant of an issue all this stuff is to them. (or perhaps it was better to silence some of them)

Links for the various stories or FDA sites on this stuff:

Execution of “FDA” official, cough syrup problem: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8Q9JE9G0&show_article=1

Chinese Shrimp problem http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01660.html

FAQ on the Seafood problem http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/seadwpe.html

Vitamins and additives article http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003732744_vitamins03.html

FDA's Seafood page: http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/seafood1.html

Complicating the issue, there is also a U.S. problem with melamine in shrimp. http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2007/NEW01643.html

>> Read the complete article

By Nelson D. Schwartz | International Herald Tribune
01 July 2007

NEW YORK: General Mills, Kellogg, Toys "R" Us and other big U.S. companies are increasing their scrutiny of thousands of everyday products they receive from Chinese suppliers, as widening recalls of items like toys and toothpaste force them to focus on potential hazards that were overlooked in the past.

These corporations are stepping up their analysis of imported goods that they sell, making more unannounced visits to Chinese factories for inspections and, in one case, pulling merchandise from U.S. shelves at the first hint of a problem.

General Mills is testing for potential contaminants that it did not look for previously, although it would not name the substances. Kellogg has increased its use of outside services that scrutinize Chinese suppliers and has identified alternative suppliers if vital ingredients become unavailable. And Toys "R" Us recently hired two senior executives in new positions to oversee procurement and product safety, mainly for goods made in China.

"We're thinking in new ways about this," said Tom Forsythe, a spokesman for General Mills. "We're looking for things we didn't look for in the past."

A Kellogg spokeswoman, Kris Charles, confirmed that retailers had asked whether the company used ingredients from China that were banned by the Food and Drug Administration in the United States, including wheat gluten and soy protein.

The company had not, Charles said, but Kellogg took the extra step of scrutinizing the ingredients that it does import from China, like vitamins, honey, cinnamon, water chestnuts and freeze-dried strawberries. It also screened its Chinese suppliers for any links to the recent pet food recall.

The discovery over the last few months of tainted or defective products from China - including toothpaste, tires, toys and fish - has prompted U.S. lawmakers to fault companies for compromising quality in their quest for inexpensive imports and higher profits.

>> Read the complete article