China Urges Tougher Punishments For Food Safety Crimes

China’s courts have been ordered to increase the severity of punishments for food safety crimes, including capital punishment for cases that lead to fatalities, Xinhua news agency reported. The court’s directive appeared to be the latest move to regain public confidence after a series of food safety scandals, including the most serious recent case in

Nothing To Hide

Forty-five years may have dimmed a frame or two of memory, but I can still see my father emptying small bags of flour-like powder into a five-gallon bucket and then, slowing stirring in a trickle of water until the two ingredients combined to make a chalky, white cream. The bags contained the still-new, pre-emergent herbicide


China detains suspect

The owner of a Chinese feed factory suspected of adding melamine to its product which turned up in tainted eggs has been detained, state media said Nov. 5. Chinese products ranging from milk powder to chocolate and yogurt have been recalled throughout the world due to contamination fears. Melamine, used in making plastic chairs among

Sorry about the melamine, Chinese firm says

An egg supplier in northeastern China has apologized after tests in Hong Kong detected high levels of melamine in a batch of products exported to the city, local media reported Oct. 28. Tens of thousands of Chinese infants have fallen ill with kidney problems after consuming milk that had been mixed with melamine, an industrial


Testing ordered on Chinese feed ingredients

Dairy ingredients and soybean meal coming from China for use in Canadian livestock feed now must be tested for melamine. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, working with the Canada Border Services Agency, ordered the new testing regime for such products on Oct. 17, “effective immediately,” looking both for melamine and for cyanuric acid, often found