Chinese premier calls food and product safety ‘urgent task;’ Cabinet passes new regulation

BEIJING – China’s premier ordered increased vigilance over food and drug safety Friday as the Cabinet announced a new regulation that mandates stronger supervision and outlines hefty punishments for makers of dangerous goods.\nThe twin actions highlighted the leadership’s focus on winning back international confidence in its exports, which have been found to contain potentially dangerous levels of chemicals and toxins.\n“Food safety and product quality should be our top priority,” Premier Wen Jiabao was quoted as saying on the government’s Web site. “It is not only an urgent task, but an arduous and long-term task.”\nWen is the highest-ranking leader to address the issue since global alarm was triggered earlier this year, when a pet food ingredient from China was linked to the deaths of cats and dogs in North America.\nSince then, a slew of exports, from toothpaste to tires to seafood, have been recalled or rejected around the world.\nChinese officials, initially reluctant to acknowledge the problem, have vowed more stringent surveillance and a crackdown on the country’s countless small, unregulated producers, the heart of China’s ongoing product safety woes.\nMeanwhile, the State Council, China’s Cabinet, introduced a new regulation that addresses the responsibilities of local governments and lays out fines for producers of dangerous goods.\nA draft of the regulation was passed Wednesday and approved by the council a day later, an unusually swift passage that again underscores Beijing’s concern. On Friday, it was posted on the government Web site.\n“Quality concerns the people,” Wen said at a national conference on product safety. “It also concerns the image of the country.”\nThe regulation, effective immediately, applies to food, agricultural products and pharmaceutical drugs.\nIt said that manufacturers should be responsible and recall potentially dangerous products. It also detailed fines of up to 20 times the value of income made from the goods.\nCooperation between various government agencies should be improved, the regulation said. Currently, the responsibility for product safety is split among at least six agencies, including those that handle health, agriculture and commerce. The lines of authority are ill-defined, and different bodies oversee different laws.\nPolice arrested 15 members of a gang that sold fake rabies vaccine and blood protein in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, the official Xinhua News Agency said in the latest in a string of such announcements.\nThe drugs were counterfeits of 67 types of pharmaceuticals, it said, citing the provincial public security department. Bogus products seized by agents included 10,000 doses of rabies vaccine, 20,250 bottles of a medication used to treat heart disease and 211 bottles of blood protein, Xinhua said.\nThe former head of China’s Food and Drug Administration was executed two weeks ago after he was convicted of taking bribes and gifts in exchange for approving substandard medications for the domestic market, including an antibiotic blamed in the deaths of at least 10 people.\nWen also emphasized the need for stricter export controls by manufacturers and officials to “uphold the good image of Chinese products.”\nAmong the measures he brought up were the need for exporters to meet the standards of importing countries and pass quarantine inspections. He also said there needs to be better record-keeping of good and bad companies, which should be blacklisted for violations.