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Maybe you should cry over tainted milk
by Abbie Tumbleson
Exchange Staff
It seems to come in waves, or rather in the form of food borne illnesses including salmonella and e coli, when contaminated food reaches the United States and gets consumed by customers who were simply trying to pick out a nice ripe tomato or poultry for dinner.
Many of these food goods have been shipped over from China. Now China is trying to create a wide range of food safety measures and control the abuses going on in the dairy industry, according to the New York Times. There was a recent scandal over contaminated milk and eggs.
There have been reports of milk containing unhealthy growth hormones in the United States, but China seems to be making their way steadfastly past those extremes. The New York Times reported, "Chinese-made milk powder was found to be adulterated with the industrial chemical melamine, at least four infants who drank the formula have died and more than 50,000 children have fallen ill." The milk products were shipped across the world and have caused massive recalls because of the contamination, which has devastated Chinese dairy farmers.
I saw an episode of "Law and Order SVU," about a secret drug operation that included hiding cocaine in cans of infant formula, but China is taking the dairy industry to a new level of instability and mistrust.
In China’s attempt to clean up their act they wish to put the new guidelines in effect by 2011. They need to examine and supervise their quality control and food industries more closely, according to an official with China’s National Development and Reform Commission.
Xinhua, the official news agency of the Chinese government, said, "The goal is to have well-bred cows and a mass-producing dairy industry."
The government also intends to provide loans and grants to the struggling dairy farmers, according to the New York Times.
The Chinese government has banned melamine as an animal feed additive, but the substance is still being sold to feed manufacturers from chemical suppliers.
I have heard that Americans are more willing to spend their incomes on a nice pair of shoes rather than food, and based on the $150,000 Alaskan Senator Sarah Palin spent on the campaign trail in recent weeks for a snazzy new wardrobe, according to the Huffington Post, I believe those rumors to be true.
You are what you eat and hormones are often used in the growing of greenhouse vegetables, injected into livestock, and dairy cattle. According to www.swedish.org, in 1993, the FDA and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel of experts approved the use of recombinant (ie, genetically engineered) bovine growth hormone (rbGH). This protein hormone promotes increased milk production as opposed to muscle growth. Its approval came only after extensive review of available data by said organizations that showed the milk of treated dairy cattle to be safe.
Hopefully Americans will pay closer attention to where their products are being shipped from and will possibly be pushed to buy from local farmers or try organic products. If something is labeled as organic it is supposed to be grown in a chemical-free environment, and should not contain chemical additives, such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), or growth hormones.
It may require dishing out a few more dollars for cage-free eggs or free-range meat and dairy products, but you will be avoiding the "3,600 tons of tainted animal feed" that is going into the bodies of the animals, which will eventually be turned into meat, milked, or laying eggs, to eventually be shipped to the United States for your delicious tainted consumption.
The full article about China’s new food regulations can be viewed at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/world/asia/21milk.html?hp=&pagewanted=print.
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