China Polishing Food Safety Image

(AP)  China said Friday it had shut down several firms at the heart of food and drug safety scares, its latest move to clean up those industries and salvage its reputation as a reliable exporter.

Li Changjiang, head of the General Administration for Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, said officials were focusing on stricter market access requirements for companies, conducting random checks and beefing up product testing.

But he stressed that China was not the only one with problems, citing comments by World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan this week that the agency receives about 200 reports of food safety problems every month from its 193 member states.

"This shows that food safety is not an issue of a particular country or region," Li said at a news conference.

Early this month, China executed the Zheng Xiaoyu's former head of its food and drug watchdog for allegedly approving untested medicine in exchange for cash, the strongest signal yet from Beijing that it is serious about tackling its product safety crisis.

During Zheng Xiaoyu's tenure from 1998 to 2005, the State Food and Drug Administration approved six medicines that turned out to be fake, and the drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, according to previous state media reports. One antibiotic caused the deaths of at least 10 people.

In a statement released Friday, Li's administration said it had pulled the business license of Taixing Glycerin Factory, which has been accused of exporting diethylene glycol - a thickening agent used in antifreeze - and fraudulently passing it off as 99.5 percent pure glycerin.

The "TD glycerin" mix of 15 percent diethylene glycol, or DEG, and other substances eventually ended up in Panamanian medicines that killed at least 51 people.

"Its workshop and facilities have been closed down by the Jiangsu province and its business license revoked," the statement said. It was the first time action against the company had been publicly announced.

The statement also detailed punishments against Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. and Binzhou Futian Biology Technology Co. Ltd., the two companies linked to melamine-tainted wheat gluten blamed for the deaths of dozens of dogs and cats in North America.

Xuzhou Anying, also in Jiangsu province, had its license revoked, its offices and workshops closed, and its right to import and export taken away, it said.

"It unlawfully added melamine in some of its products which could not meet the protein content requirement set in the contracts," the administration said. "This behavior of adulteration severely violated the feed quality and safety standards."

The business license for Binzhou Futian, headquartered in neighboring Shandong province, also was revoked and its offices and workshops closed, the administration said.

It "added melamine in some of its products which could not meet the protein content requirement ... constituting severe adulteration," the statement said. The company had also tried to avoid inspections, it said.

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[erasmus6]

China says that it isn't the only country that has problems with their food. That is probably true to a certain extent. You are bound to find certain chemicals and some bacteria in every countries food but NOT to the extent they have. I mean I really don't think that other countries are putting rat poison, plastic, pig slop and sewar in their food.

[rushlimpdrug]

Oh great, now I can brush my teeth with "Crust" and feed the dog the chow mein.
Although the dog looks a little stiff today.

[cbs_oliver]

Now if we could remove the restraints which Republicans have placed on US food and drug safety inspectors actually doing inspections we might actually have safer food.

It's hard to understand why folks continue to vote for representatives who conspire with others to rob and poison them.

But I guess other things are more important to some people.

[crater7]

I FEEL SAFER ALREADY.

WOULD ANYONE CARE TO JOIN ME IN SEAFOOD FROM CHINA?

WHY NOT?