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March 31, 2008 |
| Doubts About China's Latest Food Poisoning Data |
| Some say the Chinese government's stats don't add up |
| Reports from China's Ministry of Health are stating that there has been an increase of just 32% in deaths from food poisoning last year over the previous year. Experts in the United States have met these claims with skepticism. |
The ministry says 258 people were killed by food poisoning in 2007 in China, mostly from eating toxic seafood, produce, and meat. But the agency also claims that while the number of deaths was up from 2006, overall cases of reported food poisoning fell about 25% last year, to 506.
"I don't think that any surveillance numbers you get from the Chinese government are meaningful," says Robert A. LaBudde, PhD, of Virginia Beach, Va. "One factor you have to consider is that there are many intentional food-poisoning episodes in China," cautions Dr. LaBudde. "If you can't trust them to make the food out of the purported ingredients, why would you trust them to report problems accurately?"
Bill Marler, a personal injury and products liability attorney in Seattle who specializes in foodborne illness cases, also expressed skepticism about the report on his Web site ( www.marlerblog.com ). "Hmmm, China is a country of 1.3 billion people and the U.S. has 300 million, yet in China only 258 people were killed by food and in the U.S. 5,000," he writes. "And 506 became ill in China and in the U.S. 76,000,000. Wow! Clearly, we need to do a better job at protecting our citizens, or we need more creative counting."
Dr. LaBudde predicts the world will have to wait another 10 years before it can rely on this kind of data coming out of China. Faced with eroding public confidence as a result of product safety scandals, China's State Food and Drug Administration is being put under the Ministry of Health as part of restructuring to better monitor the country's food and drug safety, Xinhua News Agency reports. The new ministry will be authorized to coordinate food safety management, organize investigations into serious food safety accidents, and give due punishment, the news agency notes. |
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