|
|
|
|
It's Not Just Pet Food
By Peter Kovacs
Monday, April 23, 2007; A17
washingtonpost.com
Lost amid the anxiety surrounding the tainted U.S. pet food supply is
this sobering reality: It's not just pet owners who should be
worried. The uncontrolled distribution of low-quality imported food
ingredients, mainly from China, poses a grave threat to public health
worldwide.
Essential ingredients, such as vitamins used in many packaged foods,
arrive at U.S. ports from China and, as recent news reports have
underscored, are shipped without inspection to food and beverage
distributors and manufacturers. Although they are used in relatively
small quantities, these ingredients carry enormous risks for American
consumers. One pound of tainted wheat gluten could, if undetected,
contaminate as much as a thousand pounds of food.
Unlike imported beef, which is inspected at the point of processing
by the U.S. Agriculture Department, few practical safeguards have
been established to ensure the quality of food ingredients from China.
Often, U.S. officials don't know where or how such ingredients were
produced. We know, however, that alarms have been raised about
hygiene and labor standards at many Chinese manufacturing facilities.
In China, municipal water used in the manufacturing process is often
contaminated with heavy metals, pesticides and other chemicals. Food
ingredient production is particularly susceptible to environmental
contamination.
Equally worrisome, U.S. officials often lack the capability to trace
foreign-produced food ingredients to their source of manufacture. In
theory, the Bioterrorism Prevention Act of 2001 provides some measure
of traceability. In practice, the act is ineffective and was not
designed for this challenge. Its enforcement is also shrouded in
secrecy by the Department of Homeland Security.
Even if Food and Drug Administration regulators wanted to crack down
on products emanating from the riskiest foreign facilities, they
couldn't, because they have no way of knowing which ingredients come
from which plant. This is why officials have spent weeks searching
for the original Chinese source of the contaminated wheat gluten that
triggered the pet food crisis.
That it was pet food that got tainted -- and that relatively few pets
were harmed -- is pure happenstance. Earlier this spring, Europe
narrowly averted disaster when a batch of vitamin A from China was
found to be contaminated with Enterobacter sakazakii, which has been
proved to cause infant deaths. Thankfully, the defective vitamin A
had not yet been incorporated into infant formula. Next time we may
not be so fortunate.
Currently, most of the world's vitamins are manufactured in China.
Unable to compete, the last U.S. plant making vitamin C closed a year
ago. One of Europe's largest citric acid plants shut last winter, and
only one vitamin C manufacturer operates in the West. Given China's
cheap labor, artificially low prices and the unfair competitive
climate it has foisted on the industry, few Western producers of food
ingredients can survive much longer.
Western companies have had to invest heavily in Chinese facilities.
These Western-owned plants follow strict standards and are generally
better managed than their locally owned counterparts. Nevertheless,
80 percent of the world's vitamin C is now manufactured in China --
much of it unregulated and some of it of questionable quality.
Europe is ahead of the United States in seeking greater
accountability and traceability in food safety and importation. But
even the European Union's "rapid alert system" is imperfect.
Additional action is required if the continent is to avoid catastrophes.
To protect consumers here, we must revise our regulatory approaches.
The first option is to institute regulations, based on the European
model, to ensure that all food ingredients are thoroughly traceable.
We should impose strict liability on manufacturers that fail to
enforce traceability standards.
A draconian alternative is to mount a program modeled on USDA beef
inspection for all food ingredients coming into the country. This
regimen would require a significant commitment of resources and
intensive training for hundreds of inspectors.
Food safety is a bipartisan issue: Congress and the administration
must work together and move aggressively to devise stricter
standards. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House
Government Reform Committee, has deplored dangerous levels of lead in
vitamin products originating in China. We must get to the bottom of
this pressing public health issue, without self-defeating finger-
pointing.
The United States is sitting on powder keg with uncontrolled
importation and the distribution of low-quality food ingredients.
Before it explodes -- putting more animals and people at risk --
corrective steps must be taken.
The writer was president of NutraSweet Kelco Co. from 1994 to 1997.
He is a management consultant to many large food ingredient companies.
|
Document Saved Successfully
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
