I think this is the first English-language article that catches up to
what has been in HK news for more than a decade about the region.


Tuesday, June 1, 2004

The deadly side of China's rampant fakes


CHRISTOPHER BODEEN of Associated Press



Tofu made from paint. Phony rabies vaccine that's nothing but sal****er.
Bogus whisky packing a toxic wood alcohol punch.

China's thriving product pirates are best known for fake DVDs and
designer shirts. But they do their worst damage peddling phony medicines
and foods that are widely sold and can be deadly.

Even Chinese officials say they fear for their safety following a spate
of deaths and gruesome revelations.

"It's hard to know what you can eat anymore. I have the exact same kind
of food safety fears as ordinary citizens," Zheng Xiaoyun, director of
the National Food Medicine Inspection Bureau, said on state television
last week.

China's leaders were jolted into action last month following the deaths
of 12 babies who were fed fake infant formula made of sugar and starch
with few nutrients. Scores of malnourished infants that survived were
hospitalised with swollen heads and wasted bodies.

Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a nationwide investigation. Authorities
reported 137 arrests - including two officials accused of covering up
the sales and faking an investigation. More than 100,000 bags of fake
formula sold under dozens of brand names were seized.

Yet new reports of "big head babies" blamed on phony formula keep
cropping up in areas throughout China, and it's reportedly still on sale
in many places.

"Making and selling unsafe food is so lucrative and so rampant that we
don't have the means to control it," said Cai Shouqiu, head of the
Chinese Academy of Environmental Law. "Everyone just wants to make money."

Victims are often China's poorest, least educated people, who know
little other than that the products are cheap.

But cities aren't safe, either.

Supermarkets in Shanghai recently pulled pickled vegetables from their
shelves after reports that they were made using toxic industrial salts
and pesticides such as DDT.

Last week, codfish oil vitamin capsules had to pulled after they were
found to be phony, though apparently not harmful.

In the southern business capital of Guangzhou, one of China's most
cosmopolitan areas, at least 11 people died this month after drinking
liquor made with methanol, a toxic wood alcohol. The government says it
has arrested six suppliers and is looking for 17 other people.

John Huang, a Shanghai office worker, displayed the growing cynicism as
he emerged from a suburban train station into a crowd of shouting
farmers hawking lychees, kebabs and tofu cakes.

"I don't dare buy from them. All they sell is phony stuff," Huang said.

Still, he showed no aversion to other counterfeits, turning a second
later to flip through a rack of pirated DVDs.

No official statistics on the human cost of fake products are available.

But in one southwestern province, Yunnan, 17 deaths from tainted food
have been reported this year.

A recent survey of 2,415 people in seven Chinese cities found that just
45 per cent of those who responded have confidence in the safety of
their food. The rest ranged from highly sceptical to only marginally
confident, according to the survey published recently in the newspaper
Shanghai Daily.

Such sentiments haven't been helped by media reports showing officials
to be largely unconcerned - or colluding with the cheats.

In one case, medical inspectors were believed to be working with
distributors who sold rabies vaccine made of only saline to small
country clinics, according to a police official speaking on state
television.

Authorities in four eastern provinces reportedly seized 40,000 boxes of
bogus vaccines that provided no protection against rabies, a major
killer in China's countryside.

In Shanghai, illegal producers made phony tofu cakes mashed together
from gypsum, paint and starch, then fried in oil made from kitchen
waste, swill and intestines, the Shanghai Youth Daily newspaper reported.

The makers paid police about 9,200 yuan (US$1,100) a year to avoid
inspections, according to the newspaper, which said it sent two
reporters to pose as tofu merchants.

"Once a product is on shelves, it is very hard to tell what is poisonous
and to get anyone to spend the time and the money to pursue a case,"
said Cai, the environmental law specialist.

Public outrage has prompted some punishments of negligent officials and
stepped-up inspections.

Shanghai has launched a "Fear-Free Food Campaign," and says it will
close small slaughterhouses and step up quality inspections of grocery
stores, outdoor markets and cafeterias.

"I only buy from the original producers, because distributors can't be
trusted," said Miss Xuan, owner of the Three Thousand Mile grocery in
the northeastern city of Dandong.

"There is so much fake stuff around," she said. "Even fruit juice and
noodles."