Serious food-safety offenders in China face life in prison

[waybomb]

BEIJING ― China posted its new draft food safety law, which includes penalties ranging from fines to life in prison for manufacturers of substandard food, according to Xinhua reports. Covering food safety evaluation, monitoring, recall and information release, the draft law was submitted to the N.P.C. Standing Committee in December for the first hearing.
Under the draft law, manufacturers of substandard food products face fines, loss of their incomes and revocation of production certificates. In serious cases, offenders could receive prison terms ranging from three years to life.

[Doc]

Good. And I hope they enforce the law. Just last night there was a report on a drug which cause death in quite a few people who took it. The cause was traced back to sub standard ingredients used in the manufacturing process in China. Why we keep buying from them at this point surprises me, but as consumers to often we do not have any idea where the food or medicine was manufactured.

[waybomb]

Hi Doc

I guess I have a slightly dif take on things. Being in the food business, I know how difficult it is to lead up to 600 employees to <perfection>. Nothing less will do when it comes to food safety. There can be no mistakes. And we are not speaking of 1/2 x 13 x 4" bolts here; we are talking about pathogens that you can hardly even see with a regular microscope.

To that end, if we had rules like the Chinese are instituting, most Executives in most of American food comapnies would be in jail. Think of all the recalls and the companies. I've posted some of the bigger ones here, but just about every day, there is an issue in either a USDA or FDA regulated factory.

This thing the Chinese are speaking of is really window dressing; they want to appear as if they are doing something. I fully believe China, and most Chinese people want to do the right thing. Just as in America, there are also those with less than honest intentions. But when you get bad press, you must put out positive PR, which I believe this jail announcement is all about.

There are alot of good things coming out of China. Watch all the goods being unloaded in LA from the container ships. Thousands upon thousands of toms a day. The problem items are a very very small percentage of the total imported. I am not saying this justifies selling products that could kill people because of poor quality; I am saying the Murphy's Law does come into play all over the world.

I believe China is working very hard at correcting issues with the unethical contingent over there.