South Korea seizes capsules containing powdered flesh of dead babies

[HiPointDem]

49. "endless" tainted food scandals? even if that were the case (which it's not, else all chinese

would be dead), the selling of tainted food isn't an indictment of anyone but the sellers. not chinese generally.

you must not remember america's own history of tainted food scandals. which led to the passage of lots of legislation. I believe it was jp morgan, or someone very like him, who made some of his early millions by selling bad beef to the us military, for example.

and it wasn't only in yesteryear:

When the Chinese were caught selling tainted food, it was a front-page story in the Times,
and big news everywhere.

Today, we have another tainted food story–and this one is a doozy, involving not just
sloppy and inadquequate inspections, but outright bribery. And this is not a foreign scandal,
but all-American, involving “a top ingredient buyer” at Kraft Foods, headquartered near
Chicago.

So where did the Times place this story? On the front page of the Business section, most
of it below the fold.

February 25, 2010
Bribes Let Tomato Vendor Sell Tainted Food
By WILLIAM NEUMAN

Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, needed $20,000 to pay his taxes. So he called a broker for a California tomato processor that for years had been paying him bribes to get its products into Kraft’s plants.

The check would soon be in the mail, the broker promised. “We’ll have to deduct it out of your commissions as we move forward,” he said, using a euphemism for bribes.

Days later, federal agents descended on Kraft’s offices near Chicago and confronted Mr. Watson. He admitted his role in a bribery scheme that has laid bare a startling vein of corruption in the food industry. And because the scheme also involved millions of pounds of tomato products with high levels of mold or other defects, the case has raised serious questions about how well food manufacturers safeguard the quality of their ingredients.

http://markcrispinmiller.com/2010/02/a-us-tainted-food-scandal-downplayed-by-the-nytimes/

There are *political* reasons you hear a lot about tainted food in china, but not in the states.

BEIJING — Fed up with weeks of Americans bashing their food safety standards, Chinese government and industry officials say that bargain-hunting U.S. food companies share blame if contaminated Chinese ingredients wind up in food.

"Officials like me in the Chinese government can supervise the producers here, but U.S. companies doing business with Chinese companies must also be very clear about the standards they need, and don't just look for a cheap price," says Yuan Changxiang, a deputy director in the ministry responsible for inspecting imports and exports.

Jin Zemin, general manager of Shanghai Kaijin Bio-Tech, which specializes in wheat gluten, agrees. U.S. importers "want cheaper prices, but that can come at a cost," he says. "You should know exactly where the products you buy are coming from. Don't just look at the price."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2007-05-25-china-food-scandal_N.htm