No Clean Hands. No China.
Been looking for an excuse to mention what is shaping up to be an interesting new blog -- China Bystander. The blog gives no indication of who is behind it, beyond describing it as "A curious glance from an old China hand as the country develops before our eyes." The posts tend to be short and pithy, and quite original.
My excuse for mentioning it today is a very short post entitled, "No Clean Hands." The entire post is the following:
Cans of hot dog chili sauce made by a U.S. food company, Castleberry’s Food, are suspected to be contaminated with the botulism bacteria. Here’s a report. No cleans hands, so to speak, anywhere, it seems.
As a worshipper of brevity (but admittedly, not one of its finest practitioners), I love it. This post does not in any way make light of China's major problems with food safety, but it does put them in some perspective.
For those interested in learning more about this wholly domestic US food contamination and food poison cases in general, check out this post at the Food Poison blog (yes there is such a blog and it is a pretty good one at that), operated by the leading plaintiff's food poisoning law firm in the country, Marler Clark, out of Seattle.
Comments
You might also listen to my interview at:
http://www.marlerblog.com/2007/07/articles/lawyer-oped/my-interview-with-boston-public-radio/
Although China, like any country, can do more to protect against food poisoning - domestic, imports and exports, the US also has much to do. Focusing on China as the problem (other countries are much worse) will do nothing much to stop 73,000,000 American's from getting a foodborne illness each year.
Posted by: Bill Marler | July 23, 2007 2:52 PM
Would it plausible to say that the food processing industry is trying to take the heat off of itself and reduce its liability by outsourcing? Thus Big Food can blame foreign companies and import/export companies and dodge liability?
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | July 23, 2007 4:09 PM
Reading the stories closely, it isn't so much the "food industry" but rather particular parties in particular lawsuits. Both the contaminated toothpaste and the Chinese tire stories originated with attorney's that were looking for publicity for their case.
This is not to say that it is a bad thing. But the media tends to original, emotionally charged stories, which then get forgotten a month later unless something new comes up. This means that if you really want to get something useful done, you have a few weeks of attention before everyone goes after the next car crash.
The tendency of the media to focus on car crashes and drama, makes very difficult to do comparative analysis and look at trends.
Posted by: Twofish | July 24, 2007 3:47 PM
twofish:
Would you rather know about a brand of consumer product that is harmful or defective through the media or find out on your own when you wake up in the ER?
And the US importers deserve the bad publicity for importing such garbage. Save no face in the US.
Posted by: nanheyangrouchuan | July 25, 2007 3:39 PM