CHINA – Arrests Made over Tainted Pork Scandal – June 16, 2011

CHINA – Ten people have been arrested following the scandal about clenbuterol-contaminated pork in the east of the country.

Authorities in east China’s Jiangsu Province have said that they have arrested ten people, including four government staff and six butchers, in a case involving pork tainted with a toxic chemical.

The government staff, including three officials, were from the trade bureau, health inspection station and veterinary station of Jianye District in the provincial capital city of Nanjing, said a spokesman with the city’s procuratorate.

They were accused of neglect of duty, according to the spokesman.

Six butchers, all from the Xingwang Slaughterhouse, were accused of selling poisonous food as they knew the pigs had been fed with the chemical and sold the pork.

Police investigation in March showed that over 100 pigs at the slaughterhouse test positive for clenbuterol, a banned chemical used to make animals develop more muscle and less fat.

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CHINA – Two New Lean Pork Drugs Detected in Checks – June 08, 2011

SHANGHAI, CHINA – Two new chemicals with the same function as clenbuterol hydrochloride – an illegal drug used to produce lean pork – were detected in recent food safety checks, local watchdogs said yesterday.

Salbutamol and ractopamine were found in 5 per cent of pork products, while clenbuterol was detected in 1 percent of samples, officials from the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration said yesterday.

ShanghaiDaily.com reports that local authorities have intensified checks and established a blacklist of farms feeding the chemicals to pigs and banning them from the Shanghai market.

Ingesting large quantities of these slimming drugs can damage people’s hearts, with fatal consequences.

Pork tainted with clenbuterol substitutes was found during self-checks by abattoirs and wet markets and in government spot checks.

“The new chemicals are replacements for clenbuterol and are being fed to pigs to keep their meat lean,” said Gu Zhenhua, director of Shanghai FDA’s food supervision department.

“Thanks to new technology, since the beginning of the year we can perform instant checks for these chemicals and know the results within 20 minutes,” Mr Zhenhua said.

Previously, laboratory tests took 48 hours, he said.

“Any local pig farms found feeding pigs slimming drugs will be reported to the police immediately, and if the farms are in other regions, we will inform the food safety authorities and police there,” Mr Zhenhua said.

Pig farmers who feed their stock slimming chemicals face up to seven years in prison. The punishment is more severe if the practice results in death or severe injury among consumers.

Shanghai residents consume about 3 million pigs a year. About 20 per cent come from local pig farms, while the remainder are from areas including Henan, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and Shandong provinces.

Shanghai has established a computerized system covering all 16 abattoirs and eight wholesale markets which tracks each pig through the sales and processing chain.

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CHINA – Subsidiary Re-opens After Additive Scandal – June 03, 2011

CHINA – A subsidiary of China’s largest meat processor, the Shuanghui Group, reopened on Thursday just two months after a food additive scandal rocked the company.

Jiyuan Shuanghui, based in north China’s Henan province, invited reporters and consumer representatives to visit its factory on Thursday.

The company welcomes the public to supervise the quality of its products, a company spokesman said.

The company was found to be adding clenbuterol, a chemical that facilitates the growth of lean meat in pigs and other animals, to its pig feed in March of this year. The company temporarily ceased production on 16 March.

Clenbuterol is poisonous to humans and is banned for use in animal feed in China.

The trading of shares in the listed company were also suspended for one month following the scandal, which created huge losses for the company.

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CHINA – Antibiotic misuse in China underestimated – 19 Apr 2011

Antibiotics added to the feed of livestock to increase productivity are not just limited to clenbuterol, and authorities are largely blind to such adulteration, according to an industry insider.

A scandal uncovered last month involved pork produced by Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat producer, which was tainted with clenbuterol, which had been added to pig feed.

“In 2006, of 210,000 tons of antibiotics produced in China, 97,000 tons were directly used in livestock feed,” said professor Xiao Yonghong, head of the National Antimicrobial Resistant Investigation Net under the Ministry of Health.

Xiao said that the misuse of antibiotics can be disastrously detrimental to a wide range of people.

Clenbuterol detainees

Chinese police have detained 95 people in connection with the clenbuterol case involving a subsidiary of China’s largest meat producer Shuanghui Group.

Police have closed their investigations after having taken 95 people into custody between March 14 and 29 in the central provinces of Hubei, Henan, Shaanxi and Jiangsu, it said.

The scandal reportedly cost the company more than 12.1 billion yuan (about $1.85 billion) in just the two weeks after it was exposed by China Central Television on March 15.

Pork is the most popular meat in China, where each year more than 600 million pigs are slaughtered, according to Xinhua.

Information AllABoutFeed.net

CHINA – Pork Supplied to Macao Safe – April 08, 2011

CHINA – The inspection and quarantine department of Zhuhai, Guangdong province, has said that pork supplied from the Chinese mainland to Macao has been free of clenbuterol, a toxic additive and the cause of the latest food scandal.

The department’s claim, if true, may relieve people of some of their worries, says an article in Beijing News.

Excerpts:

The Zhuhai inspection and quarantine department has said clenbuterol, which causes dizziness, palpitation and profuse sweating among humans, has not been found in the pork supplied to Macao. The reason for that, it said, are its strict measures, including specialized inspection standards and batch-by-batch inspection, to prevent contaminated food from entering the market.

But such a strict mechanism is not exclusive to Zhuhai. Similar measures are used in many cities and international and other events. For instance, during the Beijing 2008 Olympics Games, the capital catered food to more than 3 million visitors without any complaint. The Shanghai 2010 World Expo attracted more than 70 million visitors, and not a single food scandal was reported.

This means the country is capable of ensuring complete food safety, though it would entail a huge cost, because local authorities have to make relentless efforts to conduct special inspections and enhance enforcement.

Besides, all government departments have to forego their differences and set up a comprehensive supervision network.

The cost is truly immense, but it is trivial compared to the price the country has paid for food scandals.

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CHINA – Who Can Guarantee China’s Pork is Safe? –

CHINA – Detection of the toxic additive clenbuterol in pig feed has once again undermined Chinese consumers’ confidence in the country’s food producers.

The Chinese government is serious about the scandal. The Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) announced that it will cooperate with eight ministries and commissions to launch a one-year crackdown on illegal additives in pig feed which have proven to be toxic to humans.

In big cities, like Chengdu and Nanjing, contaminated products from the food company suspected to be involved in the scandal have been soon moved off the shelves in supermarkets.

Some provinces have ordered that slaughterhouses should check their products everyday to avoid unsafe meat to be sold to the public.

Wan Long, Chief Executive Officer with the Henan-based Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat producer involved in the clenbuterol event, apologized last week.

Wan admitted the company’s mistake and disclosed at a meeting that the scandal had so far cost the company more than 12.1 billion yuan (about US$1.85 billion).

The government hopes that all these efforts would produce some results in saving consumers’ confidence.

Pork is the most popular meat in China. Each year more than 600 million pigs are harvested, according to Wang Zongli, vice director of the husbandry office in the Ministry of Agriculture.

Statistics from the China Animal Agriculture Association (CAAA) show that in 2009, pork accounted for 65 percent of the meat consumed by Chinese.

Clenbuterol, a poisonous chemical that can reduce a pig’s body fat to produce lean meat, was found in meat products from Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co., Ltd last month.

Experts said that the chemical is very harmful to people’s health, as it might cause cancer and other diseases.

Li Peitang from Dayi County of southwest China’s Sichuan Province has been raising pigs for more than 10 years, and now owns a pig farm with 3,000 hogs, making 1 to 2 million yuan a year.

Clenbuterol is very cheap and using it can reduce a pig’s fat by 10 per cent, Li says.

“Lean pork fetches 1.6 yuan higher per kilogram than fattier cuts,” he said.

“The scandal will hit the meat industry hard,” said Qiao Yufeng, vice chairman of the CAAA.

In 2008, melamine-tainted milk powder killed at least six infants and sickened 300,000 across the country, which deeply eroded consumers’ faith in the integrity of China’s dairy industry.

Experts and many ordinary Chinese have pinned their hope on stepped government monitoring and revised regulations to ensure safe production of food in the country.

A netizen nicknamed sdcharles has blogged, “Where have all the people in charge of supervision gone? Only after the problem has come to light do they start doing something. Why shouldn’t they all be fired?”

While Zheng Fengtian, a professor with the the School of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development at Renmin University of China said, “It’s ridiculous that Shuanghui didn’t check for loopholes in supervision. Rather, it talked about feeding pigs. Is it shifting public attention?”

Professor Zheng believes that the widespread use of clenbuterol is just one of many problems with the country’s meat industry. “Antibiotics are fed to pigs to stop them from getting sick, while growth hormones are added to quicken their growth.”

According to a central government circular issued last October, various governmental departments were given specific responsibilities to strengthen monitoring and regulations to stop clenbuterol and other toxic substances being used in meat production.

However, Qiao Yufeng notes that the departments might shift their responsibilities so they can escape blame should something bad arise.

Professor Zheng suggests tightening supervision at the last stage in the supply chain before the products reach the market.

“Disqualified products have no market. This will force producers to behave,” he said.

While Li Peitang, the farmer, said that most of the problems concerning meat quality existed at the feeding stage.

“We should ensure the safety of feed so as to tackle the problems from the beginning.”

Mr Qiao said that the general public and mass media could play an important role in supervision. “They have always been the whistle-blowers. It is a strong force for social supervision.”

Meanwhile, Shao Yunkai, a media officer with the Consumers’ Association in Heilongjiang Province, cautioned consumers to be sensible.

“With the improvement of people’s living standard, consumers paid more attention to health,” he said. Lean pork with less fat was considered to more healthy.’However, he said, “fat meat has its nutrition as well, and blindness of consumers in their choices might give opportunity to the immoral producers.”

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CHINA – Pig Farmers Told to Drug Livestock – April 01, 2011

CHINA – Middlemen were found ordering individual pig raisers to feed the animals a banned chemical that promotes lean pork in order to fatten profits.

They instructed pig raisers to add a certain amount of clenbuterol, known to the Chinese as “lean meat powder,” for a specific period of time to achieve optimal size. Then they offered a higher price for pigs fed with the drug, prompting the rampant use of the banned drug.

“We are required by the middleman to add the drug. If you don’t, the pigs don’t sell for a good price,” Zhang Yan, a private pig raiser in Mengzhou, Henan Province, told the Oriental Morning Post.

“The whole process was well concealed. We don’t know if any other pig raisers use the drug or where our pigs are sold,” Mr Zhang added.

Mr Zhang fed about 10 grams of clenbuterol to each pig, raising the cost of each pig by 3 yuan (46 US cents) to 5 yuan. A drugged pig can fetch an extra 50 yuan, according to Mr Zhang.

Quoting Oriental Morning Post, ShanghaiDaily.com reports that the middlemen made gains in three ways. They earned a 10 yuan commission for each pig, made money by selling clenbuterol to pig raisers and received more orders from slaughterhouses as lean pork was more popular, the report said.

Some middlemen work as inspectors at the animal quarantine authority.

They tested the pigs sold to slaughterhouses, giving them a chance to cheat, the report said.

The inspection process has since been tightened.

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CHINA – Tainted Pork Case ‘an Isolated Incident’ – March 31, 2011

CHINA – Sweeping spot-checks of thousands of pigs in Henan province found only a very small minority had been fed with the banned substance, clenbuterol.

The Ministry of Agriculture said on Tuesday that the test results suggested that a recent health scare involving tainted meat may have just been an isolated case.

The ministry posted an announcement on its official website, saying only 134 pigs out of 310,000 tested in the province were found to have been fed the illegal additive.

“The result shows that the case is an isolated incident caused by a few people who deliberately flouted the law,” the announcement said.

A recent inspection report, issued by the ministry following tests of pigs and pork at major markets across the country found 99 per cent passed the test for clenbuterol during the first quarter of the year, which was the same rate as the previous three years.

Liu Mancang, vice-governor of Henan, said at a press conference on Wednesday that the provincial government had dispatched more than 210,000 law enforcement officials as part of the investigation into the health of local pigs.

The announcement came in response to public fears following a scandal that was exposed two weeks ago when the media reported that Jiyuan Shuanghui Food Co Ltd, an affiliate of the country’s largest meat processor, the Shuanghui Group, had purchased pigs that had been fed with clenbuterol.

The additive causes pigs to develop muscle and burn fat but can cause health problems in humans who eat meat produced with the help of the substance.

Wan Long, board chairman of the group, admitted earlier this week that his company’s image had been seriously damaged by the scandal but insisted that the case was an isolated one.

Earlier reports said the Shuanghui Group had a policy of only accepting live, lean pigs with a meat content of more than 70 per cent.

A spokesperson for the company told Guangzhou Daily on Tuesday that they had never called on farmers to only supply leaner pigs.

He said the company is doing all it can to exclude such pigs.

“The national regulation stipulates that the spot-check for clenbuterol must sample 10 per cent but we are now examining every pig, regardless of the cost,” he said.

Clenbuterol has been banned in China since 2002.

In 2005, the State Food and Drug Administration issued a regulation stressing that organizations and individuals were strictly forbidden from producing or selling clenbuterol.

In 2008, a police investigation found people had illegally bought salbutamol, a chemical that is similar to clenbuterol, from India and were selling it in China.

The latest clenbuterol case was predated by one in 2009, when 70 clenbuterol-tainted samples were found in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province.

A livestock broker in Henan province, who asked to be nameless, disclosed to China Business News that some brokers sold clenbuterol to pig farmers for at least 5,000 yuan ($762) a kilogram. He said he promised the farmers who bought the drug from him he would buy their pigs.

In the week following the most recent scandal breaking, the cost of meat in some provinces and regions fell by 1 yuan per kg and the volume of sales dipped dramatically.

Many supermarkets called on their customers to return meat products produced by Shuanghui and consumers have said they are now more cautious when buying meat.

Liang Haoyi, a senior researcher at the China Animal Agriculture Association, said that the government should bring in more effective measures to prevent the supply of toxic additives.

Tian Chenghua, a professor of the Institute for Psychiatric Research at Peking University’s No 6 Hospital, said the many successive scandals involving food safety in China have damaged consumer confidence.

“The public’s distrust will fade away as time passes but the only way for the government to rebuild consumers’ faith is by enhancing supervision and reducing the number of scandals,” he said.

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CHINA – Chinese Crackdown on Contaminated Pig Feed – March 29, 2011

CHINA – China’s Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) said yesterday, 28 March, that the government would launch a one-year crackdown on illegal additives in pig feed which have proven to be toxic to humans.

The announcement came after a subsidiary of Shuanghui Group, China’s largest meat producer, was exposed this month for using clenbuterol-contaminated pork in its meat products.

The campaign would also involve the Food Safety Commission Office under the State Council, or Cabinet, as well as ministries of information and technology, public security, commerce, and health, along with the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, and the State Food and Drug Administration.

The illegal production, selling and use of clenbuterol, a fat-burning chemical, would be severely punished, and measures would be taken to block clenbuterol-tainted pork from entering the market, according to the MOA.

The campaign would also focus on the monitoring of pig-raising and other steps in pork supply chains, such as purchasing and slaughtering, to ensure safety of pork products.

A total of 72 people in central Henan province, where Shuanghui is based, have been taken into police custody for allegedly producing, selling or using clenbuterol, Henan provincial government said in a statement on Monday.

About 18 tons of pig feed that were suspected of having clenbuterol were confiscated by the authorities during a province-wide check that lasted from 15 to 23 March, said the statement.

Henan’s supervision authorities also investigated 53 officials and government workers for alleged dereliction of duty, said the statement.

Clenbuterol is fed to pigs to stop them from accumulating fat. It is banned as pig feed in China because it is poisonous to humans, if ingested.

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CHINA – China Orders Crackdown on Illegal Meat Additive – Tuesday, March 22, 2011

CHINA – A Chinese central government taskforce has ordered Henan’s local authorities to crack down on illegal production and use of clenbuterol, a chemical poisonous to humans.

Traces of clenbuterol have been found in pigs and the practice of adding the chemical to pig food is believed to be widespread in the province, said the taskforce spokesman from the Food Safety Commission Office under the State Council, the cabinet.

Those who deliberately add substances harmful to humans to pig food should be severely punished, said the spokesman who declined to give his name.

Local food safety officers who were negligent in their duties or involved in conspiring with illegal additive producers or pig farmers should also be punished in accordance with the law, the spokesman added.

The taskforce is made up of members from the commission as well as from the ministries of public security, supervision, agriculture, commerce and health, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine.

The taskforce carried out on-site examinations at local pig farms and slaughterhouses after they arrived in Henan on Sunday.

A subsidiary of China’s largest meat processor Shuanghui Group was exposed last week for using clenbuterol-contaminated pork in its meat products.

Clenbuterol is fed to pigs to stop them accumulating fat. It is banned in pig feed in China because it is poisonous to humans if ingested.

The Henan provincial government said in a statement it had started a new round of inspections that would be focused on other additives such as ractopamine and salbutamol, which were used as alternatives to clenbuterol but were neglected in the first round of inspections.

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