Modern civilization is bane to all living beings. Except human being
others creatures do not understand its machinations and can not protest against
the onslaughts of market system pampered, protected and promoted by this
capital driven civilization. Even the loud protests by the suffering human kind
of the world and the two major
revolutions in the twentieth century have failed to change its character.
Rather after 70 years this system has succeeded in uprooting the ‘socialist’
system from the Soviet Union and totally changed its character in China.
To day both the Chinese and the Soviet regimes are said to be much more corrupt,
decadent and anti people than the regimes in the‘democratic’ systems of the
west. A glance at the news inside China shows that like the people of
the rest of the world the Chinese are also groaning under the pressure of
market forces. The pressure of these forces is such that even the new born
babies are not safe. For example BBC NewsAsia-Pacific on 11 April 2011 quoted the Chinese
news agency Xinhua andreported that the
industrial salt nitrite was being added to fresh milk at two dairies in the
north-western Gansu
province. As a result on 8 April three children
died after drinking tainted milk. They were all under the age of two, with the
youngest only 36 days old. Thirty-six other people, mostly children, were taken
to hospital after drinking the tainted milk. Earlier in 2008, at least six
babies died and another 300,000 became ill by drinking infant formula tainted
with melamine. This industrial chemical had been added to dairy products to
make them seem high in protein.[1]
On 25 January 2010 BBC reported that on 26 Oct 2008Hong
Kong authorities discovered eggs produced by Dalian Hanwei Group
contained melamine. on 30 Oct 2008, two more egg brands from Shanxi and Hubei
provinces were found to contain melamine. It was suspected that melamine was
being routinely added to Chinese animal feed. On 27 Dec 2008, the state media admitted that nearly
300,000 people affected. On11 Jan 2009 Chinese authorities said
that a total of 296,000 children had fallen ill from consuming milk products
tainted with melamine. Earlier on 8 Jan 2009, a two-month-old boy died after
consuming baby milk powder produced under new guidelines. [2] On 29 September 2008, Vaudine explained in BBC news Hong Kong the
reasons for this milk adulteration. He said that the problems start at source -
the cows owned by mostly poor farmers who keep them (a herds of just three to
five) in substandard, filthy conditions. The farmers have generally do not have
the means to monitor the quality of the milk their cows. The middle men who are
not regulated by the state buy milk from the farmers on their ownterms
( at very low prices). To meet the increasing demand for milk productsthese poor farmers are goaded to produce more
milk. To make their milk production more profitable first they dilute the raw
milk with water to increase its volume. Experts in industry assess this
adulteration to be about 30%. The dilution of water lowers the nutrient content
of the milk, especially its protein, which in turn lowers the price paid for
the milk.To hide this low protein
content melamine a nitrogen compound is added. Till 2008 no dairy in China was
testing its milk for melamine. Australasia which was importing milk products
from China
was also not testing melamine.Actually
in this era of globalization all kinds of food items are manufactured not for
domestic or local consumption but for national and international market. In
such a scenario the dairy sector in China has grown to worth of about
$20bn in less than five years. Till 2008, it has been growing at the rate of
about 30% a year. The local governments have important role in promoting and
regulating export business in China.
Most of time promotion part gets priority over the regulation part. In this
case the Sanlu Company’s executives and the local government are said to be
aware of melamine adulteration. Instead of taking immediate action the city
government is reported to have blocked the information, and tried to avoid a
public recall of the product," [3] People Are Not the Priority of the Government—There is enough evidence to
show that the governments at various levels of ChineseState
are not bothered about the consumers. Their top priority is to increase volume
of domestic and international trade. To attain this objective they pamper
industries and traders.[4]
That is why the concerned authorities ignored the set norms. For example according
to UN agency for food standards the permitted limit for the melamine
concentration for powder infant milk formula is one milligram per kilogram and
for other food it is 2.5 milligrams. This is identical with the Chinese Health
Ministry’s standard released in 2008. Contrary to this set limit, the highest
melamine concentration in milk products at that time exceeded 2500 milligrams
per kilo. Like India food safety
problem in China
has become epidemic. In the late 1990s, Zhou Qing began to investigate food
safety in China.
His findings were published in book form titled "What Kind of God – A
Survey of the Current Safety of China's Food" in 2004 in China. But he
had to delete two thirds of the content. In this book he writes about a
producers using sick and dead animals to
make their well-known "braised chicken". A famous ham producer soaked
the meat in Dichlorvos – a toxic pesticide, so the ham later would not attract
flies. He also forecast that scandals related to food safety would drastically
increase. This happened with the tainted milk powder scam emerging soon after
the 2008 Olympics. In it, the author makes another prediction that the so-called "Egg and Milk Project"
in Chinese schools will lead to the next huge scandal. The government has
ordered that school children in rural areas be given a glass of milk and an egg
at low prices every day. Zhou Qing says the safety of these products is not
guaranteed, so the risk of children falling sick in large numbers is very high.
He believes government officials are promoting this project for their own
interests. Can this be compared with our mid day meal programme where there in
no quality control and we have frequent news of children falling sick after
eating the food served there. Like India in China too there are plenty of rules and
regulations in China
as far as food safety is concerned. But again like India
in China
too there is no respect for rule of law feels Zhou Qing. Food is the people's
Heaven, a Chinese saying goes. But it seems this heaven has turned into hell
for many Chinese consumers.[5] Why- Because the Key Operation
Is carefully left unchecked. According to , Zhi Jianhua, a member of the 11th
National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference
(CPPCC) "In China, milk production is controlled by agricultural departments,
dairy products are overseen by quality control departments, but milk purchasing
stations – the key link – come under nobody's jurisdiction,". "That
was the precise cause of Sanlu (baby milk) formula contamination scandal." Wang Dingmian, an official from the China Dairy Association, said the two
main threats to food safety were pollution of raw materials and deliberate
adulteration. Incidents caused by pollution were few in number. Most were
caused by adulteration added Wang. The examples of latter were: a fatal alcohol poisoning case in
north China's Shanxi Province in February 1998, a milk formula case in 2004
which caused babies' heads to swell while their bodies wasted away, and the
Sanlu scandal in 2008. Then there is the question of testing standards. Wang gave the example of benzoic acid content
found in food production over the past years. Benzoic acid is a prohibited
additive. But China
had not tested for its presence in milk powder production over the past few
years informed Wang. When it was found in food, especially baby food, consumers
were overwhelmed with panic and anger. The new Food Safety Law sets stricter
and more scientific requirements for food additives. It says "Any use of
the additives prohibited by state law will be regarded as illegal. However,
there are tens of thousands of additives in use by the food industry. Without
specific standards, there are bound to be illegal activities" feared Wang.
Zhi Jianhua agreed, saying: "The country lacks appropriate testing
standards. The number of testing standards is over 4,000 in developed
countries, while there are less than 300 in China. That's why illegal
substances such as Sudan Red are found in food products and supervisory
departments only find out after the events." Faulty food processing In addition to additives, faulty processing also threatens food safety, said
Wang Dingmian an official from the China Dairy Association, "For example,
the popular 'flash processing technique' (pasteurization by flash heating)
doubles the ash content and sugar acid in milk and endangers people's health,
especially their kidneys and digestive systems."But the hazardous
materials are not detected by existing product testing. The state doesn't have
any rules or regulations in this regard. Some enterprises are still using the
technique and thus pose a big threat to food safety."[6] Who Benefits By Food Manufactured for Market—There is all round violence in
this process of manufacturing food items for the market. The producers suffer
the violence because they have no control over prices. They are overtly of
covertly forced to accept low prices for their products and thus remain
perennially poor. Most of them can not afford consuming their costly products.
The consumers suffer violence, because they can not get good quality products.
Rather are made to buy and consume hazardous products. Once the scandals become public governmentmachinery becomes proactive to do damage control. People are arrested and subjected tor summary trials. Death sentences are liberally awarded. One does not know how many innocent get convicted. Only the middle men, adulterators,
their protectors in the government—the corrupt politicians and officials-- and
business and industry tycoons gain materially. Morally and spiritually they
also suffer violence. They might not feel it. In short in this monster of
market operation there is a false projection of all round prosperity and
abundance. In reality every individual is forced to live in an environment of
fear and apprehension. In India milk producers are agitating against milk manufacturing companies for quite some time. From 20th may 2012 they are fasting at Jantan Mantar.
[1]Milk poisoning in northwest China 'deliberate' BBC NewsAsia-Pacific11 April 2011
[4] According to Hans Troedsson, WHO's China
representative,this incident was aggravated by delays in reporting at a number
of sources. "These delays were probably a combination of ignorance and
deliberate failure to report." [snip] , Xinhua News Agency reported on
Sept. 22 that Sanlu Group received complaints in December 2007 and knew of the
contamination in June 2008. It didn't notify the city government of Shijiazhuang, where it's
based, until Aug. 2008. The nation's quality and safety watchdog started an
investigation on Sept. 10 2008. See, The
Chinese food scandal: at least it wasn't a bird flu outbreak, September 27,
2008,
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/09/the_chinese_food_scandal_at_le.php
[5] Miao Tian Food adulteration: a much
bigger problem than assumed
http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,5778587,00.html
[6]
Li Jingrong, Loopholes in food safety system: CPPCC member, March 10, 2009 http://www.china.org.cn/government/NPC_CPPCC_2009/2009-03/10/content_17416966.htm
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