EAT ZINC! CHINESE BUREAUCRAT GIVEN DEATH PENALTY: Flack says the Chinese government has always attached great importance to the health and safety of consumer goods
"China has delivered a death sentence to the former head of its food and drug administration, for taking bribes to approve untested medicines," reported Voice of America news today. "The court case was heard as China faces growing complaints about unsafe drugs and food."
"A Beijing court sentenced Zheng Xiaoyu to death for taking bribes worth over $830,000 while he served as chief of the State Food and Drug Administration ... [The Chinese government] said one antibiotic approved by the regulator caused at least ten deaths."
A fuglewoman for the Beijing government said "China has always attached great importance to the health and safety of consumer goods, especially food and drugs, and is willing to work with the international community to safeguard the quality and reputation of Chinese food."
Your friendly neighborhood GlobalSecurity.Org Senior Fellow now invites readers to wonder what will be the fate of Mao Lijun, the arrested head of Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology, the company that sold melamine as a protein extender to pet food feed makers?
Waiting to be put down?
In related news late last week, the Los Angeles Times business section ran a short article on "monk fish" from China, sold in the US, containing tetrodotoxin.
The FDA news release which spurred the story is here.
Tetrodotoxin, in case you don't know, is a powerful poison contained in ubiquitous trash fish known as puffers. While obviously not popular in classic American cuisine, consumption of puffers is associated with tetrodotoxin poisoning and called fugu.
Now, it's possible a simple mistake was made. And then again, knowing how things have worked recently, it would not be unreasonable to suspect that a Chinese vendor to the global market had come up with the brilliant idea of selling puffers as knock-off monk fish.
"Two people in the Chicago area became ill after consuming homemade soup containing the fish," infored the FDA. "One was hospitalized due to severe illness."
Moving along, today's Los Angeles Times op-ed page contained a contribution by Steven Ettlinger enttitled "What Twinkies can teach us."
Ettlinger is the author of "Twinkie, Deconstructed," a book about where the myriad chemicals in American foods originate. It was presumably thought he had something absolutely scintillating to contribute on the Chinese food-tainting scandal.
Not really.
"The Food and Drug Administration should classify additive adulteration the same way the Agriculture Department classifies meat contamination: totally unacceptable," he writes.
Brilliant. When you're into poisoning lots of pets with melamine and bringing to market medicines with diethylene glycol, we're a little beyond that stage.
Ettlinger is fascinated by "sorbic acid." He mentions it comes from foreign lands in his editorial and devotes a chapter or two to it in "Twinkie, Deconstructed," because his kid once asked him what it was, thus inspiring an intellectual quest to write a book about its ingredients.
Losing control of the food supply chain has led, Ettlinger writes, "to lower food and pharmaceutical prices, but perhaps at the cost of the quality control."
Ettlinger's blithe and brainlessly breezy piece leads one to entertain the image of an author you'd expect to hear humming "On The Sunny Side of the Street" at work. Next book to be entitled: "You've Been Poisoned! The good news is you won't eat that again!" Due from Penguin, early 2008.
"Smart processed food companies ... are scrambling to find guaranteed safe alternatives ... If you want to have your snack cake and eat it, too, you have to remember: You are what you eat."
Except, dope, the companies involved in the current scandals can't just walk away from their part in betraying the trust of consumers.
Ettlinger's book had been sitting around at Plaza Destiny for months, retrieved by a friend from the castoff review copies pile at a big local newspaper.
Despising gee-whiz books of the type, DD resisted opening it until a couple days ago.
"Twinkie, Deconstructed" was apparently written as a golly-isn't-this-remarkable story about chemicals found in food.
It strings together dozens of brief explanations on the industrial origin and uses of various compounds in the Twinkie as well as other foods. One can think of it as a grab bag of chemical identities, written for people who hate science by someone who doesn't really know science, but done so ebulliently the pages keep turning until the end, at which point the lay reader will have forgotten most of the anecdotes.
"Flour dust is explosive!" burbles the book jacket. "Phosphorus, one of the seven elements necessary for life, is also what causes ... artillery shells to explode!"
Phosphorus! The gift of life and the gift of death! Who knew!?
Gosh-o-jeekers! Say it isn't so, Mr. Ettlinger!
Voice of America News original.
Boss Melamine -- Mao Lijun of Xuzhou Anying.
An 'Eat Zinc!' favorite.
"China has delivered a death sentence to the former head of its food and drug administration, for taking bribes to approve untested medicines," reported Voice of America news today. "The court case was heard as China faces growing complaints about unsafe drugs and food."
"A Beijing court sentenced Zheng Xiaoyu to death for taking bribes worth over $830,000 while he served as chief of the State Food and Drug Administration ... [The Chinese government] said one antibiotic approved by the regulator caused at least ten deaths."
A fuglewoman for the Beijing government said "China has always attached great importance to the health and safety of consumer goods, especially food and drugs, and is willing to work with the international community to safeguard the quality and reputation of Chinese food."
Your friendly neighborhood GlobalSecurity.Org Senior Fellow now invites readers to wonder what will be the fate of Mao Lijun, the arrested head of Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology, the company that sold melamine as a protein extender to pet food feed makers?
Waiting to be put down?
In related news late last week, the Los Angeles Times business section ran a short article on "monk fish" from China, sold in the US, containing tetrodotoxin.
The FDA news release which spurred the story is here.
Tetrodotoxin, in case you don't know, is a powerful poison contained in ubiquitous trash fish known as puffers. While obviously not popular in classic American cuisine, consumption of puffers is associated with tetrodotoxin poisoning and called fugu.
Now, it's possible a simple mistake was made. And then again, knowing how things have worked recently, it would not be unreasonable to suspect that a Chinese vendor to the global market had come up with the brilliant idea of selling puffers as knock-off monk fish.
"Two people in the Chicago area became ill after consuming homemade soup containing the fish," infored the FDA. "One was hospitalized due to severe illness."
Moving along, today's Los Angeles Times op-ed page contained a contribution by Steven Ettlinger enttitled "What Twinkies can teach us."
Ettlinger is the author of "Twinkie, Deconstructed," a book about where the myriad chemicals in American foods originate. It was presumably thought he had something absolutely scintillating to contribute on the Chinese food-tainting scandal.
Not really.
"The Food and Drug Administration should classify additive adulteration the same way the Agriculture Department classifies meat contamination: totally unacceptable," he writes.
Brilliant. When you're into poisoning lots of pets with melamine and bringing to market medicines with diethylene glycol, we're a little beyond that stage.
Ettlinger is fascinated by "sorbic acid." He mentions it comes from foreign lands in his editorial and devotes a chapter or two to it in "Twinkie, Deconstructed," because his kid once asked him what it was, thus inspiring an intellectual quest to write a book about its ingredients.
Losing control of the food supply chain has led, Ettlinger writes, "to lower food and pharmaceutical prices, but perhaps at the cost of the quality control."
Ettlinger's blithe and brainlessly breezy piece leads one to entertain the image of an author you'd expect to hear humming "On The Sunny Side of the Street" at work. Next book to be entitled: "You've Been Poisoned! The good news is you won't eat that again!" Due from Penguin, early 2008.
"Smart processed food companies ... are scrambling to find guaranteed safe alternatives ... If you want to have your snack cake and eat it, too, you have to remember: You are what you eat."
Except, dope, the companies involved in the current scandals can't just walk away from their part in betraying the trust of consumers.
Ettlinger's book had been sitting around at Plaza Destiny for months, retrieved by a friend from the castoff review copies pile at a big local newspaper.
Despising gee-whiz books of the type, DD resisted opening it until a couple days ago.
"Twinkie, Deconstructed" was apparently written as a golly-isn't-this-remarkable story about chemicals found in food.
It strings together dozens of brief explanations on the industrial origin and uses of various compounds in the Twinkie as well as other foods. One can think of it as a grab bag of chemical identities, written for people who hate science by someone who doesn't really know science, but done so ebulliently the pages keep turning until the end, at which point the lay reader will have forgotten most of the anecdotes.
"Flour dust is explosive!" burbles the book jacket. "Phosphorus, one of the seven elements necessary for life, is also what causes ... artillery shells to explode!"
Phosphorus! The gift of life and the gift of death! Who knew!?
Gosh-o-jeekers! Say it isn't so, Mr. Ettlinger!
Voice of America News original.
Boss Melamine -- Mao Lijun of Xuzhou Anying.
An 'Eat Zinc!' favorite.
posted by George Smith at 6:04 PM
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