Adulterated Food, Fake Drugs on Chinese Radar

A major drive against food containing prohibited additives, illegal cooking oil, stale pork and spurious drugs has been launched by the Chinese government. The Ministry of Public Security launched the initiative Thursday which will be carried out throughout 2012. It aims to ensure people's "dinner table safety", Xinhua quoted a ministry's statement as saying.

The police will keep up the pressure on clenbuterol, a banned chemical that makes pork leaner. It can be harmful to humans and dirty cooking oil to "prevent them harming the society", the statement said.

Under the campaign, the police will target sale, purchase, and slaughter of pigs. It will mainly crackdown upon criminal gangs profiting from purchasing ill pigs and manufacturing non-fresh pork.

The investigators will also focus on drugs meant for treating tumours and cardiovascular diseases, as well as blood products and vaccines, the statement said.

It added that efforts must be made to crack down on manufacturing and sale of spurious drugs via the internet, in multinational networks and in small rural pharmacies and clinics, as well as fake drugs in urban hospitals.

"Anything found to be harmful will become the crackdown's target," said the statement quoting an unnamed ministry official.

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Since last year, the Chinese police have discovered over 5,200 cases of unsafe food and more than 6,500 counterfeit drug cases, 156 of which involved clenbuterol that was found in over 24,000 tonnes of pig feed, 135 of which involved illegally recycled cooking oil amounting to 60,000 tonnes.

Police also found 170 cases of stale pork weighing nearly 6,000 tonnes.

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--Indo-Asian News Series

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Source-IANS