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GUEST: Patty Lovera, Assistant Director of Food and Water Watch

Several countries have recently banned a host of Chinese products ranging from pet food to shrimp. The moves were prompted by a finding this April by the US Food and Drug Administration that North American dogs and cats were poisoned by tainted Chinese pet food ingredients. China‘s product safety watchdog said last Friday that it had revoked the business licenses of several firms that had exported diethylene glycol and melamine-tainted products linked to the pet food scandal. A growing number of Chinese products have been found to contain potentially toxic chemicals and other contaminants. Most recently the government of the Philippines has claimed that a Chinese produced candy contains cancer causing formaldehyde. Recently Beijing Television aired footage of vendors making fluffy buns stuffed with chopped-up cardboard that had been softened in caustic soda and mixed with pork fat and flavoring. The footage was widely viewed outside China on websites like YouTube. Now the Chinese government is accusing the journalist responsible for the investigation, of fabricating the report.

For more information, visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org.

Rough Transcript:

Sonali Kolhatkar: Thank you very much for joining us. So, this scandal continues over the past several months but, presumably, the products that have been imported from China, particularly food products, didn’t just start being tainted. Is this an issue of not good enough watch-dogging, if you will, from the United States; the FDA not doing its job well enough?

Patty Lovera: That’s absolutely a part of it. I mean, this is getting a lot of attention, which it deserves and we’re happy that that’s finally happening but this is not a new problem – that we’re relying more on imported food and our safety net here in the U.S. is just not complete and not able to catch the stuff as it comes in, let alone, go to a country like China periodically and see what’s being done. I mean, it’s just not happening in a coherent way.

Sonali: Is this essentially a symptom of globalization we’re looking at here?

Patty: Well, I think this is a symptom of years and years of policies and politicians that were more concerned with promoting trade than with maintaining basic standards for health and safety. So, you know, we , it’s not a coincidence that the rise in imports has been accompanied by a real deregulation of the food industry, whether it’s here, with domestic production or for imports. So, when these two trends converge, it’s what we’re gonna get – more imported food that’s questionable.

Sonali: Now, just taking a look at China’s own economy, does it seem as though the extremely fast rate of growth in China’s economy can, you know, be seen to be a factor in these problems, that the economy and the factories, farms, etc. have grown so fast that the government has not been able to keep up on things like regulating food products?

Patty: Absolutely. And that’s one of the biggest, I think, revelations to really come out of all this media attention is the extent to which no one’s really in charge when it comes to China, especially. I mean, their economy has changed so fast. There’s a real – it’s very hard to trace products as they’re changing hands many times by the time they leave China. And another, you know, kind of telling moment came – about a month ago, there was, you know, a high-level meeting between food-safety officials from the U.S. and officials from China and one of the things that came out of this meeting was that China pledged they would do a better job making a list of who exported food from China. The fact that they don’t have a list, I mean, just shows how little regulation there is and how little control there is. And with the pet food story, it was also another telling moment: it took several weeks for our folks from FDA in the US to get over there and get permission to get in and then when they got to some of the plants that seemed like they were the source of the problem, some of them had been shut down. So, it just, it’s a real free-for-all and we’re meting the results of it.

Sonali: Now, I was reading that the European Union is holding China, at least attempting to hold, China accountable, asking for food safety reports – that it’s supposed to be delivering to the European Union Consumer Protection Commissioner. Is the U.S. doing similar things through its FDA?

Patty: They’re starting to make noise about doing those things, but a lot of it, it’s late in coming. There’s an enormous amount of pressure on China right now between all of its negative attention on their food safety and then the upcoming Olympics next year. So, they’re really under the microscope and I think that they will start to be more transparent and offer more information but the question is, is that enough, to get a handle on their food safety system? We’ve been disappointed at the response by our government here in the US when it came to dealing with the pet food scandal really evolving. I mean, eventually, we found out that the contaminated ingredients that was responsible for the pet food problem also made it into feed for animals that people eat – chicken and fish and pigs. And, you know, the USDA and the FDA just kind of let that food go through. They didn’t recall that meat. They’ve been, we think, too passive. And, this, having talks with government officials, isn’t good enough. We need to be looking more at the food when it comes in.

Sonali: Speaking of meat, there’s also an issue of seafood from China that is apparently quite problematic. One article that discusses this talks about how the FDA was aware of the widespread use of antibiotics and fungicides in fish and shrimp farms in China for years but only issued an alert on five types of Chinese seafood this past June. They know that importers can skirt tests for mercury and other heavy metals by sending smaller swordfish and tuna less likely to contain mercury than large fish for testing, etc. There’s also an issue about the use of carbon monoxide to preserve the colors of fresh fish and that’s basically being used in the seafood. I mean, these are all, what should people be thinking when they’re consuming seafood? What percentage or approximately what percentage of seafood in the United States comes from China?

Patty: Well, we know that about 80% of seafood is imported, so we’re very dependent in this country on imported seafood. A large proportion of that, about ½ of those imports, are coming from fish farms or aquaculture which are predominately very, very large facilities with a lot of fish crammed together and that’s where we’re seeing things like the fungicides and the antibiotics and other chemicals being used to treat all the problems that crop up when you have that many fish close together. China is a major player in aquaculture and, unfortunately, they seem to be a major player in using chemicals and antibiotics that are not allowed here in the U.S. So, for example, we did an analysis this Spring of FDA’s data when they refused shipments at the border, which is pathetically small because they only inspect 1% of what coming in but of that 1%, we looked at that data and China was responsible for 60% of the refusals for drug residues and chemicals so they’re definitely a player in an industry that has a lot of shady practices.

Sonali: I’m speaking with Patty Lovera. She is the Assistant Director of Food and Water Watch. We’re discussing the continuing scandal of contaminated food imports from China. So, let’s talk about what’s at stake for U.S. companies here, Patty. Because, as you said, the FDA and the U.S. government in general has been slow to react. Certainly, it seems slower than the European Union. What could be at stake? Certainly China’s economy could suffer if the U.S. were to be more stringent on regulations – but what about U.S. corporations?

Patty: Well, I think that every American food company, at this point, is really scrambling to take a look at where their ingredients come from and I think our industry, our food system, has really changed in the last few decades. I mean, the food is more complicated, the food itself has more ingredients and more additives and chemicals and flavorings and all of those kind of components are what’s coming in from other countries and a lot of these companies – I think, this year’s been a real wake-up call – it’s their problem on how they source this stuff and maybe they shouldn’t be going to the cheapest supplier if they can’t guarantee the safety. But I think you’re going to start to see more companies offering up some kind of certification about, you know, “We tested this” and “We do quality control”, that kind of thing. At the same time, the market is not very good at fixing these things. I mean,we need rules. We need enforcement of the rules across the board so that everybody gets that assurance because there’s a standard – not depending on what product you buy produced by what company and what they decided to do.

Sonali: So, Patty, to summarize, it seems as though the place that we’re at right now is certainly or seems to be, certainly, the direct result of companies looking for the cheapest food sources that they can possibly find in an effort to make sure that their profits are as fat as possible at the expense of our health. And, of course, the FDA certainly seems to be playing along as much as possible. Does that sound accurate?

Patty: Unfortunately, yes. That’s kind of where we’re at. I mean, so, our perspective on this right now is that there are things that we have to be doing immediately. You know, Congress needs to be making these agencies work better. They need to be doing more inspections of imported food. And, at the same time, Congress is actually fighting right now about something called, “country of origin labeling” which would put some information in the hands of consumers so they can shop a little smarter and, if they knew what country products like meat and fruit and vegetables are coming from, at least they can make a more informed choice. So, those are both short-term solutions that should be happening immediately while we grapple with this bigger issue of where our food is coming from.

Sonali: So, if such information was listed on our food product labels, certainly it might be wise, at least for now, to avoid products from China, but what other countries are there problems in terms of food safety and what countries seem to have more trustworthy regulations where the food coming from those countries is something that people here can trust?

Patty: Well, I mean, there’s no hard and fast rule, unfortunately. But, one thing to think about if you’re looking at something that comes from another country – what do you know about, you know, how well their regulatory system might work? Is it a country that seems to have the resources to inspect food? Is it a country that has a clean water supply when you’re talking about , you know, fruits and vegetables, especially. It’s critical how clean the water was. Because the vegetables absorb the water – they get washed in the water and irrigated in the water. There have been problems with imported produce from Mexico because of contaminated water. And also the other, the flip side of this, is that it’s not just about personal benefit. I mean, there’s a strong environmental argument for buying food that’s produced closer to home, to reducing the miles that that food has traveled and the oil used to ship it and starting by buying products produced in the U.S. would cut down on some of those miles when that’s an option.

Sonali: And, there’s also a larger issue with respect to globalization. If you look at the ways in which the economies of poor countries have been readjusted with millions of people losing their traditional livelihoods, being forced to work in factory farms because of these economic pressures and now, of course, if their economies suffer as a result of these sorts of scandals, they too will suffer, but that’s almost unavoidable.

Patty: Well, that’s a critical point. And, that’s a point that we try to make. I mean, we are not bashing, you know, farmers in China, because farmers don’t export things, corporations do. And, this is an adjustment and a change that has happened to the food systems of these countries where they’re trapped in this export-driven model and people aren’t producing food for their own consumption, they’re producing in a plantation-style, massive facility so some multi-national corporation can send it elsewhere for other people to eat. So, there absolutely, unfortunately, is going to be some short-term pain involved in that if markets collapse but these are not good systems and they’re not really benefitting anybody but the corporations that are moving the food around.

Sonali: So, aside from making personal choices, for consumers to make personal choices, Patty, what do you recommend on a policy level that activists can do, for people that are interested in adjusting or changing or reforming this entire system? Certainly, it seems the one first step would be to strengthen and improve accountability at the Food and Drug Administration here in the United States?

Patty: Absolutely. And the timing, you know, is good. Congress is talking about these issues- they have to because they’ve been in the news. And, in another week, the members of Congress will be home for the August recess. So, if you’re, you know, at Town Halls or at events where members of Congress are there, it’s critical that we’re all talking about food issues and saying, “what are you going to do, you know, to make it tougher for contaminated food to come in and imports?” “What are you going to do to increase inspection of domestic food production?” Because there are still problems here. And, “how are you going to help me by local; how are you going to get labeling on foods? I know where it’s from. Are you going to support, you know, local farmers with farm-to-school programs and buying better food for institutions?” And it’s a critical time in Congress because they’re doing the Farm Bill and the budgets for next year so it’s a time for all of us to start talking to them.

Sonali: And, very briefly, you mentioned there are problems also with domestic food?

Patty: I mean, we continue to have to fight for strong food safety standards everywhere because these companies try to cut corners when they can so, right now, there’s a recall of products from a company in Georgia, canned chili and some pet food and a lot of processed products, and it’s becoming clear that this was a company that had a problem for a long time and there was not enough inspection there to catch it. So, now we’re in the middle of a, what’s probably going to end up being a, very large recall, because the enforcement of rules just wasn’t there. Because, you know, these industries have really been deregulated. So, it’s not to say that only imported food is the problem – we need strong standards across the board.

Sonali: It’s like the E. Coli contamination of spinach that we had relatively recently as well. I believe that was from U.S. farms as well.

Patty: Yes. Yes, that was an example of, you know, a real, what happens when our methods of production get, you know, so centralized and so large, that you end up with animal waste contaminating fruits and vegetables and then, a problem that could have been kept local with that food, you know, was eaten locally, became a national problem.
Because that one field that was contaminated, that spinach got mixed up with a lot of other spinach and shipped out to the whole country. So, it shows that, you know, when it comes to food safety, a local food supply is more in control as well than what we have now.

Sonali: So, at the heart of this whole thing is also just the basic way in which food is produced – on an industrial level versus on a local level, and, of course, that’s a very, very big question to deal with.

Patty: It is, absolutely, but it’s also a good time of year to start trying to do your part on that, I mean, especially in California, you can buy some portion of your food at farmer’s market. I mean, the more you can shorten the chain between who grew the food and you eating it, the more control you have, the more information you have. So, that’s just always the goal to think about is, you know, when it’s possible, when you can find it, to buy as direct as you can, and that gives, that benefits a lot of different areas.

Sonali: Patty, where can listeners find out more about your organization, Food and Water Watch?

Patty: Our website, which is: foodandwaterwatch.org and so we have places they can take action or read more about these issues.

Sonali: That’s foodandwaterwatch.org Patty Lovera, I want to thank you very much for joining us today.

Patty: Oh, thanks for having me.

Sonali: Patty Lovera is the Assistant Director of Food and Water Watch. We’ve been discussing contaminated food imports from China and the website is foodandwaterwatch.org.

Special Thanks to Julie Svendsen for transcribing this interview